The early retirement of Pearl, Will Ferrel’s two-year-old partner in comedy crime, has left my belly aching for some web-video fun. Luckily, Hillary Clinton’s video announcements of her campaign’s theme-song contest over the past few weeks has inspired some hilarious responses.

In case you didn’t care enough to watch, much less vote, turns out “we” (“the American people” as she oddly puts it—does the title “World Wide Web” mean anything to her?) chose the gem “You and I” by Canadian songstress Celine Dion.

Celine Dion?

Hillary’s attempt to ramp up her “cool” and “fresh” ratings with the YouTube generation might have worked if her target demographic still un-ironically used words like “cool” or “fresh” or ever listened to Celine Dion.

The campaign’s follow-up video to the contest announcement played off the reject rolls from “American Idol” auditions and seemed slightly more plugged into web-video culture. It nevertheless begged for remix mockery, which it promptly received. The worst part about it were Hillary’s canned dance moves, which left me with bone-chilling memories of my parents as school-dance chaperons.

Although the spoof Sopranos video that rapped up the contest last week succeeded in creating buzz, Hillary’s on-camera stiffness can make John Kerry seem as smooth as JFK. There’s also the fact that, according to industry publication Broadcasting and Cable, the average Sopranos viewer—not unlike the average Celine Dion fan, I’m sure—is about 50 years old. In sum, none of it quite works. Hillary’s voyage into online video seems to be backfiring like a “hip” mom trying to “get in with the cool crowd” by creating a Facebook profile. (Hillary has official profiles on Facebook and MySpace.)

There’s a crucial pop-culture element missing in her strategy. She knows enough to try to speak pop-culture but not enough to get it right. Anything Celine Dion is a terrible choice, whereas Will Smith, for example, as the neon-clad prince of his uncle’s Bel Air pad, speaks across generations and will never go out of style. YouTube user “JackDanyells” knows this, and his post highlights some key ways Hillary’s commendable attempt to reach out online went wrong.

The video posted up top makes me laugh out loud, perfectly capturing the way Hillary’s forced “I’m-so-excited-to-be-talking-to-you-that-I-might-explode” presentation makes you cringe. Plus, the dance moves are so sway.

Tags: celine dion, hillary clinton, theme song, will smith