BUCKFIELD – The Webby Film & Video Awards, the first major awards honoring original film and video premiering on the Internet, has nominated “The Extreme Diet Coke & Mentos Experiments” for the Best Viral Video for 2007. The video was produced by Fritz Grobe and Stephen Voltz of EepyBird.com, based in Buckfield.

Winners will be announced May 1 and honored June 4 at The First Annual Webby Film & Video Awards in New York City. The ceremony will be hosted by comedian and actor Rob Corddry, star of Fox’s new sitcom “The Winner” and a former correspondent for “The Daily Show with Jon Stewart.”

“The Extreme Diet Coke & Mentos Experiments” shows the amazing effect of dropping Mentos mints into bottles of Diet Coke – geysers of soda up to 25 feet high. Choreographed like a candy-powered version of the Bellagio fountains in Las Vegas, the video took the Internet by storm in 2006, with more than 10 million views online.

Grobe and Voltz went on to appear on numerous national television programs, including “The Late Show with David Letterman” and “The Today Show.” Their Web site, EepyBird.com, features family-friendly videos and gets several thousand visitors a day.

Hailed as the “Oscars of the Internet” by the New York Times, The Webby Awards are international awards honoring excellence on the Internet, including Web sites, online film and video, interactive advertising, and mobile Web sites. The Webby Film & Video Awards are judged by a diverse group of entertainment industry leaders, including Harvey Weinstein, Showtime’s Matt Blank, The Firm’s Rich Frank, Sundance Channel’s Larry Aidem, and Jim Gianopulos, chairman and CEO, Fox Entertainment.

“It’s been an incredible year for us, being on Letterman, Ellen, The Today Show, and traveling to Paris, Amsterdam, and Istanbul, all because of Diet Coke and Mentos,” said Grobe. “Being nominated for a Webby Award is yet another amazing honor we never would have anticipated.”

As a nominee for a Webby Film & Video Award, EepyBird is also eligible to win a People’s Voice Award. Voting is open to the public from April 10 to April 27 at http://peoplesvoice.webbyawards.com.

Besides winning a Webby, nominees and winners of The Webby Film & Video Awards will become part of The Museum of Moving Image’s collection of more than 125,000 moving image-related artifacts. The Museum of the Moving Image maintains the nation’s largest and most comprehensive collection of moving image-related artifacts.

Grobe and Voltz launched EepyBird.com in June 2006. EepyBird grew from a unique community of artists centered around the Oddfellow Theater in Buckfield. Once a month, people gather at the theater for “The Early Evening Show with Mike Miclon,” a spoof of a late-night talk show that has been selling out regularly since 1998. These performers have appeared at the White House, the Kennedy Center and venues across the United States, Europe, and Asia. For more information, visit www.eepybird.com.