In a world before youtube, my friends and I had a much smaller collection of beloved internet videos. The most beloved of them all was a file called money_funny.wmv. It may be known better on the internet as Korean Girls Doing Karaoke, but to me, it will always by Money Funny
It features two teenaged Korean girls singing what I imagine is a hit song about Money. Thought it is technically a duet, the girl on the right quickly makes it known that this is her show. As her meeker friend cowers in her presence, occasionally dropping to her knees in fits of embarassment/hilarity, the girl on the right flashes a wad of bills, busts out a variety of dance moves, raps in a Jabba The Hutt-esque voice and makes grusome faces at the camera. Amongst my friends, we referred to her as Money Funny, star of the video of the same name. My friend Greg watched Money Funny so many times that one night at two in the morning, the roomate who shared a wall with him had to pound on the wall to get him to stop watching it. She was heard to remark outloud to nobody in particular “He watches it all the time!!!”
Money Funny frequently topped lists of people we would like to meet. She was made into t-shirts. I used this site to make an enormous image of her for my wall. But aside from her one moment in the sun, we were left with no further updates on Money Funny. A friend of mine who worked for a phone company stumbled across a ringtone of the song they were singing, which was all we had to go on for some time.
Until last week. It turns out that Money Funny is the alias of Kim Shin Young, who, from what we can gather, is some sort of popular entertainer in Korea. Judging by the Youtube clips, she is still a dynamo who appears on reality programming and steals the show each time. I’d be surprised if she was above Kathy Griffin status on the celebrity ladder, but for me, this is the equivalent of when they found The Beatles “Free as a bird” and “Real Love” from the Anthology discs, only they don’t fill you with loathing and sadness, but rather joy and a sense that all is right with the world.
Enjoy these two clips of Money Funny/Kim Shin Young on some sort of dancing program. I can’t tell what is going on, but I’m happy that she’s still out there:
(Note the Money Funny-esque moves she tosses in at the end)
5 responses so far ↓
1 RemmieBarrow on May 12, 2008 at 3:59 pm
I’m speechless.
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2 Kleenex on May 12, 2008 at 5:40 pm
Good god that was funny, I’m going to have to add that to my favorites. Conor, until recently, I had no idea you were the person who created the famous video recreating the 10th inning from Game 6 of the 1986 World Series in RBI Baseball. I’ve got that one in my favorites. As a Red Sox fan I watch it regularly and weep.
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Reply from Conor Lastowka on May 19, 2008:
Nice! Always good to know your work is making people weep.
3 Onil on May 13, 2008 at 4:03 pm
This is pretty much everyone with in my extended family at any get together.
One time we had a Money Funny-esque guest turn off the videogames the kids were playing so she could sing karaoke. By herself. With no one even paying attention to her singing.
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4 Sacho on Jun 24, 2008 at 8:04 pm
She’s basically a korean comedian or ‘gagman’. They appear on variety shows and make the wise cracks. She’s really quite hilarious. The two video clips at the end are from Star Golden Bell. A variety show where they invite gagmen and korean celebrities to play games. She appears pretty often on the newer episodes. I’m sure you can find a lot of her on youtube
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