"SWEET!!! We won the YouTube Sketchies Contest!!! Woo-hoo!!!" said a message posted on the Awkward Pictures site. "Thanks to all our friends and fans(?)! We're really really excited! More details on the way. For now, we shall sleep. You rock."

TDR featured Awkward's initial sketch video entry Waffle early last month, and we spotlighted their semi-final-winning entry FriendBuddies last week. They won the finals with Rodney & Zak, a vid about the tumultuous relationship between a man and his pug.

In an email to TDR, Benz said the exposure form the contest has been huge for Awkward. "Our website hits have been really high since the beginning of the contest, we've been getting offers from companies that want us to either produce stuff for them or distribute our videos, and we added nearly 1,000 new subscribers on YouTube. There are more eyes on our work and that's a great feeling."

He said that before the contest it was hard to tell how they might fare, but that as each round progressed they realized that they had a good shot.

"We weren't sure if we were going to be able to pass LisaNova, since she's one of the most popular YouTubers and has like 42,000 loyal subscribers," he said. "We were quite surprised when we passed her on the last day of voting. Also, YouTube told us that all the Finalists' videos were going to be featured on the homepage, so anything could happen. You can make funny videos and a group of people will like it, but you never know what's going to be successful on the homepage. Luckily, it all worked out for us."

Having won the contest, the production group will receive a contract to produce a comedy short for Sierramist.com; an all expenses paid trip to meet The Lonely Island and attend the premiere screening of their new film "Hot Rod"; a Panasonic AG-HVX200 camcorder (or equivalent); a copy of Apple Final Cut Studio 2 (or equivalent); and a Lighting Kit consisting of a 300 watt variable output video/digital lights with fan.

"The camera is the thing we were most excited about, but the entire package is amazing," said Benz of the prize. "Of course meeting The Lonely Island guys will be awesome, we're huge fans of their work. Some of our friends knew them when they were in L.A. and they say nothing but the nicest things about them."