Corddry's Children's Hospital Goes Live at TheWB.com

Today marks Rob Corddry’s return to the spotlight with a 10-episode Web series called Children’s Hospital on TheWB.com. That’s the portal that brings to the Web what used to be The WB television network.

A quick teaser for the show is available here. I believe you have to sign up for the beta to check it out.

Corddry appears to have tapped almost every friend and family member he’s ever had – including his brother Nathan, his mother, The Office’s Ed Helms and fellow former Daily Show correspondent Stephen Colbert – to “star” in this wacky send-up of TV’s hospital genre. Of course, we already have Scrubs and Grey’s Anatomy sort of parodies itself but Corddry should not let that stop him.

Since leaving The Daily Show, Corddry has appeared in films and one horrible Fox sitcom, the ironically titled The Winner, which clearly was not. From the brief trailer, it looks like Children’s Hospital’s bawdy jokes and silly humor is targeted at anyone but children. Corddry’s fan base of men who act like children (who largely comprise the incredibly hard-to-reach 18-34 male demographic) should completely appreciate it.

Not so long ago, creating a Web-only series would have seemed like something only the desperate and out-of-work would have done, but it’s starting to become the place where all the cool kids hang out. Joss Whedon’s “Dr. Horrible’s Sing-a-Long Blog” is the crème de la crème of this set, but others are starting to make waves. Most recently, we see nearly every star in Hollywood appear in Funny or Die’s “Prop 8 – The Musical,” including John C. Reilly, Jack Black, Neil Patrick Harris, Margaret Cho, Maya Rudolph and Allison Janney.  It’s one of those digital shorts like “D**k in a Box” or “I’m F**king Matt Damon” that has everyone talking.

While marketing is great, word of mouth via Facebook and MySpace links are what really spread the word on the Web. I’m sure TheWB.com hopes that the Twitter bunch digs Children’s Hospital enough to link to it like crazy. Still, the trick on the Web, just like on TV, is that the content still has to be great in order to stand out — maybe even greater because there’s so incredibly much content out there. We’ll see if Corddry’s maiden Web effort manages to rise to the top.