Nerdy crap maintains coolness factor

Boing Boing: LEGO album covers on flickr
From the fantastic Flick Lego Album Covers Poll comes the Beatles "LEGO it be" by minifig and the White Stripes' "White Blood Cells" by Joanna Saves the Earth. Of course the White Stripes are no strangers to lego, having worked with Michel Gondry on the LEGO-ised "Fell in Love with a girl" video. LEGO Album Covers Pool (Flickr via Geekdad)

This stuff is sophisticated playtime.
Do a bit of research, get out the old skool lego and combine it with a bit of pop culture and you have yourself some avant garde mash up that excites and makes people laugh. Better than that cute cuteness factor garbage.
And the best thing about this stuff- anyone can do it, but is usually is just smart people who are funny and have a good grasp of pop culture.

All this pov/raw/not-too-profesh/not-too-whizbang production value stuff seems to work because it's the content that is focused upon.
Other things that work in this way:

• Flight of the Conchords
• Ask a Ninja
• Chad Vader (only about the first 4 episodes but it is good enough).
• Post secret
• Channel 101
  
• Any bloody awesome mash up. My favourites are here, here and here (except this last one is a little more sophisticated).
• Postman pat

Postman pat is a joke. Could pass for sophisticated playtime except it's professional and he loves his black and white cat.