Eventually Judd Apatow’s schtick will no longer be fresh. But it may continue to be funny, even after the viral marketing backlash. Case in point: this new sketch/advertisement for Walk Hard, which takes Apatow’s viral brand to a mega-meta level. As much as the idea of fake fights involving Apatow and his actors is now a tired concept, the video is hilarious. And as much as Apatow’s self-referential jokes about being self-referential about being self-referential are as obvious as they are mind-wrapping, the video is still hilarious.It helps that this time around, there’s more funny guys involved and more going on at once. It’s not simply funny to watch Craig Robinson chasing after Judd Apatow because he’s pissed about being in another one of his “fucking commercials”, but it’s comedic gold to inter-cut it with Paul Rudd, Jonah Hill and Justin Long realizing they no longer have to talk about Apatow’s movies and can freely discuss their desire to see Michael Clayton.

Funny is funny, regardless of the situation or the motive.

Of course, that doesn’t mean we can’t wonder what Apatow will do next, whether he’ll keep trying to top each of these promotional sketches, which in addition to serving as advertisement preludes are also blatant fodder for DVD extras (as Robinson mentions), or if he’s acknowledging that it’s time to throw in the towel for awhile. This sketch points out self-referentially that the backlash has begun on the “viral marketing bullshit” (again Robinson), and Apatow has to be somewhat commended for realizing it at the same time his fans are.

So now what? Certainly the real trailers for Walk Hard don’t make me want to see the movie enough — regardless of whether or not it is really funny — yet videos like this one don’t exactly sell me on the movie either. They’re better accepted as one-shot videos and I for one choose to ignore the fact that they have an actual commercial attached at the end. Here’s an idea: how about Apatow simply make movies that are funny enough that we want to see them, and then make some funny videos on the side that have no relation to those movies? He’s already been doing that for awhile anyway.