This past weekend, hilarity ensued during the first round of Chicago Sketchfest. As you may recall, we have been encouraging participating comics to upload their best stuff in hopes of scoring our coveted approval in addition to cash, swag, and a slot on Comedy Central.

Well, the suspense is (half) over as we officially announce one of our two Atom Picks: Nap Time, by user joeavella:

We’ll be announcing our other selection at this time next week, so keep your eyes peeled, and if you’re in Chicago, get your butt over to SketchFest to see the insanity first hand!

Bryan Cranston is in the middle of what they call “a moment”. He’s the star of a hit show on AMC, nominated for a Golden Globe, just hosted SNL, has a ton of media coverage, and to top it all off… is the star of the new Atom.com series, The Handlers. Cranston stars as Jack Power, a good natured politician running for senate, who’s surrounded himself with a team of crooked consultants.  Bryan spoke with Entertainment Weekly, Monsters & Critics, Collider.com and New York Magazine about the show, but you can see it for yourself below or check out the rest of The Handlers…

The last week of 2010 has come and gone, but the tournament is still going strong. There are a couple strong holiday pieces still running, so if you haven’t had your fill of Christmas sweater jokes, check that shit out. Otherwise, it’s back to business as usual here at Atom, handing out cash, prizes, and time on TV like it’s our job.

Hit the jump for the top ten winners!

As we count down the minutes to 2011 in the almost eerily quiet Atom offices, we thought we’d take a quick moment to present an extremely incomplete list of some of the great things we did in 2010. From the finale of our biggest series, Legend Of Neil, to narrowly avoiding a Tommy Wiseau-inspired riot at Comic-Con, to the launch of the Tournament, things got a little nuts this year, and here are just a few of our favorite things that happened.

Big old congrats to our friend Ben Lerman, whose delightfully dirty ukulele ditty is rated in the Brilliant/Lowbrow quadrant of New York Magazine’s latest Approval Matrix.

Color us impressed. We had to grab our trusty Websters to even decipher what a “matrix of taste hierarchies” is.

Go, Ben, go!

Well, looks like the bellies full of Christmas cookies and egg-nog-induced trances weren’t enough to keep you all from voting with your views in this week’s Tournament. It seems that many a holiday was spent the old fashioned way: with the whole family gathered ’round the soothing blue glow of the old computer, dreams of cash and prizes dancing in competitor’s heads. So who emerged victorious week? Who’s going to have some extra cash in their pocket this New Year’s Eve to blow on novelty noisemakers?

Take a look after the jump:

In celebration of, let’s face it, an exhaustingly eventful 2010, we at Atom are giving up our usual letters to Santa in favor of helping some of our favorite people of 2010 with their holiday wish lists. For the next twelve days we’ll have a brand new gift guide to help you shop for your favorite celebrity or pop culture phenomenon.

So there are these two guys. They’re in this band called the Insane Clown Posse. They wear face paint to look like said clowns and they sing about bitches and ejaculation, but they secretly love Jesus. Their followers are called “Juggalos” or “Jugallettes,” and sometimes “Down-Ass Ninjas.”

How to accurately describe a Juggalo? The true nature of a Ninja can only be felt with the heart, sensed with the soul, dreamed about in a haze of Mad Dog and weed resin smoked out of a rusted-out Mountain Dew can fished out of that sluggish creek behind PJ’s house. Let Violent J and Shaggy 2 Dope, the masterminds behind ICP, explain to you:

In celebration of, let’s face it, an exhaustingly eventful 2010, we at Atom are giving up our usual letters to Santa in favor of helping some of our favorite people of 2010 with their holiday wish lists. For twelve days leading up to Christmas, we’ll have a brand new gift guide to help you shop for your favorite celebrity or pop culture phenomenon.

Have you found yourself scrambling to buy a last minute gift for your favorite cast member of Glee? What, are you a stalker? You probably are. Or maybe you’re just looking to buy your favorite “gleek” something that’ll make them break into pre-choreographed, auto-tuned musical medleys of pop and/or Broadway hits. Either way, here’s a list of the stuff I would buy the kids on Glee, if they were real, and I knew them, and wanted to, you know, buy them a present.

A change of clothes for those cheerleaders.

Here we are, friends, nearing the end of the year. It’s a time for reflection, good will, and CASHING IN ON THE ATOM TOURNAMENT SO YOU CAN BUY SWWEEEEEETTTTT PRESENTS FOR YOURSELF. What better gift can we give than $500 American and a T-shirt with our logo on it? I can’t think of anything better, that’s why I got my whole family the same thing. Anyway, the top 10 videos are pretty sweet this week. Aaron Glaser has hit his stride, and is cleaning up! Can you topple his winning streak? Let me see what you’ve got in the facebook group, and maybe you’ll be in the top 10 next week.

Take a look at your hardened competitors after the jump…

In celebration of, let’s face it, an exhaustingly eventful 2010, we at Atom are giving up our usual letters to Santa in favor of helping some of our favorite people of 2010 with their holiday wish lists. For twelve days leading up to Christmas, we’ll have a brand new gift guide to help you shop for your favorite celebrity or pop culture phenomenon.

As the 2010 Gift Guide rolls into the home stretch, (and after my last fawning entry for a certain foreign Princess-to-be), let’s spare a moment for a true American treasure, Celebrity Politician Sarah Palin. In a year when her reality show took educational cable by storm, her Main Daughter danced with other stars, and her Other Daughter got a teeny, tiny bit homophobic, I think we can all agree that True American Hero Sarah Palin deserves a gift or two. So for the half of you who have S. Palin on the “Nice” side of your present list this year, you could do worse than picking up one or two of these gifts.