As it happens, Ferrell and McKay hadn't originally set out to become that source. When first approached about hitching themselves to what Kvamme pitched as a comedy version of Hotornot.com, where users would vote on the comedic merit of submitted clips, they were lukewarm on the idea. ''We just weren't buying it,'' says McKay. ''We were like, Don't they remember the late '90s when it was like, 'That's it! We're all going to live on the Internet!''' After some back-and-forth, the two realized that there was really nothing to lose. ''We figured, if it didn't work, it would just disappear into cyberspace and no one would ever know,'' Ferrell says. Plus, Kvamme's firm, Sequoia Capital, would be writing the checks�all Ferrell and McKay had to do was manage the creative side, which was the fun part.
Once ''The Landlord'' took off, though, their casual side project didn't seem like such a lark anymore. ''At first, we had one guy working part-time and it was sort of mom-and-pop,'' says McKay. ''Suddenly, there were two months where it was our full-time job.'' Having just launched Gary Sanchez Productions the previous year, the pair now had to hire a half dozen writer-producers in their Hollywood office to help manage FunnyOrDie and come up with new content.
Though traffic has subsided since the initial spike, FunnyOrDie continues to draw a steady 3.5 million visitors a month. And despite their busy schedule shooting Step Brothers and ramping up their production company, Ferrell and McKay still keep their fingers in the FunnyOrDie pie. ''They look at the site a lot,'' says Amy Rhodes, its director of content. ''Adam will e-mail me at two in the morning, like, 'Yo, I saw this. Check this out.'''
Last month, writer-director-producer Judd Apatow, who'd worked with Ferrell and McKay on Anchorman and Talladega Nights and was hot off the combination punch of Knocked Up and Superbad, signed on as a third partner on the site, further certifying its legitimacy as a go-to spot for comedy. Apatow has already contributed several clips to the site and is developing more original pieces. ''It's scary to make a movie,'' he says. ''It's fun to do something like this, where it doesn't have to make money, you don't have to market it�it's just a pure comedy experience.''
That's not to say FunnyOrDie is completely pure�for the site's partners and financial backers, all those yuks represent potential bucks. Thus far, FunnyOrDie has yet to turn any kind of profit (''We're doing quite well, if by 'well' you mean getting no money and working a lot,'' McKay says drily), but Sequoia Capital has already poured several millions of dollars into the site, banking on a future in which FunnyOrDie operates as a sort of Web 2.0 version of Comedy Central, supported by advertising and available on any device with a screen. ''The goal is to create a channel on the Internet,'' Kvamme says. ''Programming that channel and creating the content�that's the key�and that's what Adam, Will, and those guys do so well.''
