Michel Beaudet
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Type of site
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Humour website |
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| Available in |
French English |
| Owner | Michel Beaudet |
| Created by | Michel Beaudet |
| Website | www.tetesaclaques.tv |
| Alexa rank |
 238,960 (April 2014[update]) |
| Launched | August 16, 2006 |
| Current status | active |
Têtes à claques is a French-language humour website created on August 16, 2006. Over one million short videos are watched per day, making it one of the most popular francophone websites in Quebec (and eventually Canada as a whole). As of March 2011, there are 184 videos. The most popular of these include Le pilote, Le Willi Waller, and Halloween.
The creator, Michel Beaudet, has expressed surprise at the popularity of his site, saying it has reached an audience he never anticipated.
As of 2010, Mondo Mini Shows has picked up the English version of Têtes à claques and broadcasting it under the name TAC.
In December 2015 a release of its second English version, Knuckleheads, was announced to come out by January 2016. It was partly remastered to make jokes understandable for the North American audience (for example, the Prime Minister was made similar to Stephen Harper).
The skits feature characters sculpted from modelling clay that are fairly simplistic. Michel Beaudet creates the figures himself, by superimposing his own moving eyes, mouth, and sometimes nose on their faces with a computer. In addition, Beaudet has a set of fake, grotesque teeth, which he puts in while his face is being filmed. The phrase tête à claques translates loosely as "a face so ugly, you want to slap it."
The site has also become very popular in France, not only because of the intentional humour and wit, but also because of a stereotypical Quebec accent. This differs greatly from pronunciations used in France, and thus provides its own humour, in addition to the frequent anglicisms (English words or expressions inserted into speech).
The site features a page for mobile phones that presents snippets of episodes.
Beaudet has said that "Têtes à claques was an accident." He was originally trying to make a series using stop motion animation, but quickly discovered that "90% of the time it takes to animate is spent moving the eyes and mouth." He tried doing it the regular way, but because he was "too lazy", he decided to film his own face and superimpose his eyes and mouth on the figurines.
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