Winnebago Man

Winnebago Man (2010) is a documentary comedy you can watch online on iFILM, directed by Ben Steinbauer. Its subject is Jack Rebney, an RV salesman whose foul-mouthed meltdowns during a 1989 Winnebago commercial shoot spread on bootleg VHS tapes years before YouTube and turned him into a cult internet figure.

Steinbauer sets out to track down the man behind the clip, and finds a hermit living alone on a mountaintop. The real Rebney is sharp, well-read, furious at the world, and nothing like the cartoon the gifs made of him. What gives the film its edge is the question underneath it: what does it feel like to be the person millions are laughing at? At 85 minutes, it's a small, bittersweet study of accidental fame for anyone curious about how a person becomes a meme. Stream Winnebago Man (2010) online on iFILM.