Dubbed "Zeroes," it's a roughly two-minute send-up of the Peacock's hugely popular Monday night drama "Heroes." The spoof has been widely passed around via the Internet, racking up more than 1.5 million views over several platforms, including YouTube and Break.com.

But unlike most other network-created viral videos, "Zeroes" contained not a trace of evidence that it came from NBC.

No Peacock logo. No "Tune in Mondays at 9" message at the end. No credits whatsoever.

"It was an experiment," Manze says. "We wanted to see how far we could go, and we wondered if (auds) knowing we did it would be a detriment."

Project, made for about $17,000, was so clandestine that Manze says he didn't even tell "Heroes" creator Tim Kring about "Zeroes." Keeping the clip's origins a secret was a means of building up its credibility with potential viewers.

The "Zeroes" clip is just one of dozens, if not hundreds, of NBC-created viral videos the network has unleashed over the past year.

Parody Press Comics returns with a BANG with "HEWOES #1", a hilarious spoof of NBC's popular "Heroes" TV show!

When cheerleader Klair Bendit discovers her weird powers playing Twister and her dad's secret project involving strangers from around the world, the fun begins.

Meet the enigmatic Pastrami brothers, Internet Weathergirl Sniki Sanders, constipated Japanese office worker Hewoe, and Mohinder Night Shalaman, who is trying to make sense of the whole thing while a berserk hairdresser named Styler is on the rampage!

Make sure this satire is on your comics list or we'll have to brainwash you!

Heroes is shot nearly entirely in Los Angeles with the exception of a small hand full of shots, yet the shows characters travel from India to NY - both now and in the future. To achieve this the production worked with Stargate Digital. In this week's podcast we speak with VFX Supervisor Mark Kolpack and Supervising Producer Mark Spatny about Stargate Digital's work on the NBC television series Heroes...

...Early on, the show had to deal with flying characters. VFX Supervisor Mark Kolpack wanted to produce feature film level effects and to improve on the normal solutions for flying. While some wire work is still done as in the shots above, they worked on new approaches. The show started doing full body scans and producing digital doubles to allow for more believeable flying sequences in the show. While initally considered a gamble, many of the actors have now been scanned and digital doubles are used as a standard part of the visual effects tools at the team's disposal....

You may recall my rant about character blogs done poorly. If you don't the quick recap is that it's hard to have an effective "character blog" (a blog created around a fictional character) when the blog has constant reminders that this character is completely fictional. TV show characters live in a world that's not hosted on CBS.com, for instance.

Since that post I've been on the lookout for a great character blog and Web sites that I could share as an example of how to do it right. I found two great support efforts for this season's hit show "Heroes", and both focus on lesser discussed aspects of show.

Of the two, my significant favorite is the VotePetrelli.com site. This site literally could have been created for any candidate running for office this year. (Which is a sad reflection on Web sites for political candidates, but I digress)

Let's see how this site stacks up against my Rules for Character Blogs & Sites:

Keep it right - this blog is certainly the exact right concept for a fictional political candidate.

Use what you have - this project is fun because it fits into the universe, but doesn't focus on the more obvious elements of the show. This helps to extend the show "world" much further.

Make it real - although not as applicable on a non-blog site, it's still interesting to see that the privacy policy says nothing about NBC and instead references only VotePetrelli.com. I actually emailed the webmaster with an in-character note to see what kind of response I'll get back.

Connect the dots - I'm not sure if this has been advertised elsewhere. Anyone else seen anything about it? (I read about it in Wired)

Extend the illusion - the illusion on this one is pretty deep. Zero branding, zero reference to NBC, and absolute synchronization to the show's on-screen character.
The second site focuses on the fictional Yamagato Fellowship but isn't as tight. Sadly there's far too many "coming soon" references in the content for this to be considered great, but it's certainly a solid effort.

Great work, NBC!

Last year, "Heroes" was the smash hit of Comic-Con, and this year promises to be no exception, but...

We're giving you two ways to strut your stuff in front of millions of fans and win great "Heroes" prizes in the process.

Heres How:

Create your own Heroes music video of your own Heroes comic book. The winning entries will be presented at the 2007 Comic-Con convention in San Diego!

Don't waste a minute. Get started on your very own masterpiece now.