Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, and Will Ferrell is a master of imitation (think of his Saturday Night Live impersonations of George W. Bush and Jeopardy host Alex Trebek). But now it’s his comedy video Web site FunnyOrDie.com that’s being imitated.

Started in 2007 by Ferrell and Saturday Night Live writer Adam McKay, FunnyOrDie has been so successful, its parent company, Or Die Networks, has spun off other sites using the same business model. These include skateboarder-entrepreneur Tony Hawk’s ShredOrDie.com and a celebrity chefs’ site called EatDrinkOrDie.com.

While there are tons of funny sites and videos on the Web, there aren’t many with the number of viewers or celebrity content of FunnyOrDie.com. Ferrell’s site averages more than 6 million viewers a month and streams over 100 million top comedian and celebrity videos a month. The first video on the site, The Landlord, had 60 million viewers and featured McKay’s 2-year-old daughter, Pearl, playing Ferrell’s angry landlord. FunnyOrDie also is a place where aspiring comedians can submit their own videos and viewers vote on them—the funniest videos remain, while the rest, well, die.

Beyond being the funny guy we see in movies like the summer hit Land of the Lost and The Goods: Live Hard, Sell Hard scheduled for release in early fall, Ferrell is also a savvy businessman. As a board member of Or Die Networks, he provides daily creative input and weighs in on company initiatives.

FunnyOrDie’s CEO Dick Glover credits the site’s success to Ferrell’s active participation. Ferrell doesn’t believe in bootstrapping to his name or having a vanity site, Glover says.

What does he believe in? Providing a quality product. Oh, and being funny.

Cracking Up in Suburbia
Growing up in safe, master-planned Irvine, Calif., Will Ferrell says boredom was his comic inspiration. “There was no drama so we had to create it in our heads,” he told the Orange County Register. “My main form of entertainment was cracking my friends up and exploring new ways of being funny. I didn’t have the survival mode instinct of other comics who grew up in tough neighborhoods. I had the opposite. For me, I grew up in Mayberry, and the humor broke the boredom. And there was a lot to make fun of.”