What happens when you gather 8 B-list (to be generous with the grade) celebrities for a whodunnit-type reality series in Mexico? Well, for our part, we helped win an Emmy.

In 2003, Funny Garbage joined ABC Enhanced Television's team to assist in the design and development of interactive elements for the hit show Celebrity Mole: Yucatan. Part of the American Film Institute's Digital Content Lab[link] (AFI DCL) project, the Celebrity Mole application was the first developed using the Windows XP Media Center Edition PC platform.

Unlike a basic PC, Media Center-based machines can provide a more highly integrated marriage of online and traditional broadcast content, resulting in a heightened interactive experience. In a single screen, viewers were able to enjoy the program and simultaneously participate with other users in online polls and activities, trying to identify the nefarious saboteur.

FG's technologists helped develop the core application and populate it with content, while our Flash designers hurdled barriers to development and created functionality that even the Microsoft team initially thought impossible. We made it work.

And so, with Funny Garbage's digital media expertise on board, the application won the 2004 Emmy for Outstanding Achievement for Enhanced Television.

Oh, and by the way, Angie Everhart was the Mole. Did you guess correctly?