Scandal: Is Oprah trying to stop a comedian with cerebral palsy from getting a show on her network?

  Zach Anner is frigging awesome.

Is something up with Zach Anner's attempts to land a show on Oprah's network?  Is-- God forbid-- Oprah trying to fix the race?  Yesterday, we reported to you with two videos from the brilliant Zach Anner, a comedian based out of Austin with cerebral palsy who's been trying to land a show on Oprah's forthcoming network.  The media giant has been running an online contest to see who would win the show, and now it appears that there's reason to believe that the whole competition may be fixed.  Surely Oprah's not low enough to fix a competition, especially one featuring a comedian with cerebral palsy ... right?  Read on for the shenanigans, my gentle Examiner readers ...

Yesterday, we ran an article demanding that you, the gentle Comedy Examiner readers of the world, head on over to Oprah's site and vote for Zach Anner, a standup comedian (well, sit-down comedian, if we're being honest) with cerebral palsy who's in the running for his own TV show on Oprah's new network.  Oprah's auditioning people online for their own show on her forthcoming, sure-to-be-unstoppable cable network, and Zach's one of many who's applied.  The thing that sets Zach apart, however, is that he's hilarious and deserves to win.  Yesterday, we watched his videos (I've embedded the original article's notes and clips below) and-- if you were listening very carefully-- you voted for Anner afterwards at the links I provided.

Well, what would you say if I were to tell you that those votes you cast might have all been for naught?  There are shenanigans afoot, my precious snowflakes, and thanks to the magic of the "Screencap" button and some eagle-eyed Anner-fans, we've got the proof.  Check this out:

That's a side-by-side comparison of screenshots of the same screen with only two minutes' difference in the times listed in the bottom-right corner of the page, posted by Examiner.com's own Cleveland Pop Culture Examiner.  In other words, we have photographic evidence showing that Zach Anner lost about 20,000 votes (he went from 3.48 to 3.46 million votes) in the space of two minutes.  How is that possible?

Well, in short, it isn't.  There's a "Doctor Phyllis" that has been challenging Anner ever since the contest began.  In fact, for awhile there, Dr. Phyllis was leading the entire contest.  Then Zach released his first audition tape (it's the second video below), and in came an overwhelming amount of support from the internet.  Zach suddenly found himself in the lead, but ever since he's been neck-and-neck with this Dr. Phyllis character (who has no relation to Dr. Phil, by the way).  Is this whole thing rigged, and are they trying to keep Anner from winning?  Here's what they're saying over at Gather.com:

We can come up with other reasons that Dr. Phyllis is in the lead, but the simplest seems to be "blame the system" which in this case is internet voting.  It's always easiest to complain that something is unfair, but I think the last person you'll hear saying how unfair things are is Zach Anner.  Maybe we can all learn from him about how to go forth in life.

Oh, come on, Gather.com!  Let us cast Oprah as the villain here; the story's much better that way.  You can head over to THIS PAGE right now to cast your vote for Zach Anner.  If you haven't already seen his Oprah audition tape, we've got it below.  We've also got the first part of Anner's recently released "Rolling In Austin" series-- which is just as funny as his Oprah audition tape.  Anner's obviously a gifted comedian-- we named him "Comedy Hero of 2010" yesterday-- so what's the problem, Oprah?  Don't want people voting on THIS PAGE so you'll have to give Anner his own TV show?  You know what to do, internet: vote for Zach Anner now, and keep your eyes peeled for any future shenanigans on the part of Oprah or her network over at THIS PAGE whenever possible.  Now, for those of you who are just joining this story, let's take a look at what happened yesterday...

YESTERDAY: I don't want to go so far as to say that I've got a man-crush on Zach Anner, but it's something perilously close to that: This dude is hilarious.  Based in Austin, the comedian is notable for having cerebral palsy (not the sort of thing that you generally see comedians running  rolling around with).  Late last month, Anner made the news by releasing a video (which we'll go ahead and embed at the bottom for those that missed it) that was to serve as an audition for Oprah's new network.  The media giant had asked for people to submit videos to her auditioning for a travel show, and Anner's became one of the most popular almost overnight.  Now he's back with a new clip to prove he ain't a one-hit wonder, and it may be even funnier than the first:

Funny stuff, right?  How this guy doesn't already have a show is beyond me, guys.  He's already funnier than about 80% of everything that's currently airing on Comedy Central.  Let's take a look at his original Oprah audition tape, just for those of you who are just joining the Zach Anner show, already in progress:

Look, if you're not already onboard with Zach Anner, you and I have very little to talk about.  As the first video implies, Anner's currently hard at work editing the second half of his "Rolls Through Austin" epic.  We can only hope that this leads to many more Zach Anner videos in the future-- if not a whole full-blown TV series.  I'm willing to bet that a Zach Anner show would take off with a vengeance.  I hereby declare Zach Anner our "Comedy Hero of 2010."  Yes, even in a year where Dane Cook has a new album coming out, we've decided to give this one to one of the little guys ... but we're not expecting him to stay that way for long.  Awesome work, Zach.  Now, about that Oprah thing ...

If you're as big a fan as I am, head on over to THIS PAGE to help Zach win Oprah's little show giveaway.  You can cast your vote in favor of Mr. Anner immediately, and even though he's got a substantial amount of them already on his side (a little over 3.5 million at the time of this writing), we don't want to see some sneaky bastard who isn't nearly as funny come up and snatch it away from him at the last minute, do we?  You know how these internet-based contests work.  Head on over to THIS PAGE right now and vote for Zach Anner!  And if that doesn't work, I'm going to go ahead and say Anner for President, 2012.

That's all we've got for you for now, folks, but stay tuned for more as it becomes available.  In the meantime, we've got all manner of funny videos, news, reviews, interviews, recaps, funny pictures, and more to keep you entertained all summer long, so hit the "Subscribe" button up top to get all of it delivered straight to your inbox, free of charge, the moment it's published.  Why, if that wasn't enough, we've also got some other recent Comedy Examiner articles for you to look over while you're here:

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(photos: screencaps)