Link Neal (left) and Rhett McLaughlin film a commercial for a dog taxi/daycare service called SuperShmuttle.
Photo courtesy IFC

Nothing says mind-blowing local commercial like this line from a small-business owner: “If you like to climb on things and get high, this is the place.”

That exact quote, issued with complete sincerity, is the kind of utterance routinely captured by the cameras for Rhett & Link: Commercial Kings, a new show about viral-video masters Rhett McLaughlin and Link Neal. (If you must know, the quote comes from Margaret Hughes, who runs Holiday Hotel for Cats; she was just channeling what one of her feline guests was thinking — see clip below.)

The “docu-comedy,” which premieres Friday night on IFC, follows genuine marketing geniuses McLaughlin and Neal as they gather the information and outlandish video they use to create spots for their clients. It’s like a loopy Mad Men, with fewer cocktails and a 21st-century DIY spirit.

You might not know McLaughlin and Neal’s names, but chances are good that if you have an internet connection and a jones for online video, you’ve seen their work before under the auspices of I Love Local Commercials.

Remember “Epic and Honest Mobile Home Commercial“? How about “Inappropriate Zoo Commercial“? Or maybe “Black and White People Furniture“? Together the comedy duo’s hilarious (and totally real) local commercial spots have been watched about 100 million times on YouTube. Now they’re looking to replicate that success on the boob tube with Commercial Kings.

‘We’re basically just looking for a business that has a legitimate marketing challenge.’

“We go in and we’re basically just looking for a business that has a legitimate marketing challenge and it’s usually a business that would not be getting their own local commercial,” McLaughlin said earlier this week in a conference call with reporters. “I mean this season, we’re making a commercial for a taxidermist, a place that does colonics, a hot-yoga studio, a biodegradable casket company.”

The 10 episodes of Rhett and Link: Commercial Kings on IFC this season will each involve McLaughlin and Neal spending a couple days with business owners and creating Twitter-ready viral commercials for them. Included in the first season’s insanity will be a training facility called Make Me a Pro Wrestler, a spa for colon care called Fountain of Health and an eco-friendly burial service called Bury Me Naturally.

The season will also feature the making of a commercial for Da Spot Hair Studio, aka Troy’s Spot Hair Studio, a salon largely operated by and frequented by African-Americans. The challenge: The shop’s owner wants to diversify his client base. Neal and McLaughlin’s attempt to make that wish a reality is warmhearted and hilarious even as it deals with the potentially tricky issue of race, and presumably mimics their previous effort in making “Black and White People Furniture” — an ad for a business in North Carolina.

“Dealing with a race issue, we had done that before with the furniture store in High Point, North Carolina, called Red House Furniture,” Neal said during the conference call. “So in the episode this season, you’ll see how we answered the challenge of taking Troy’s Spot and marketing it not only to African-American clients but to white women and all other types of women.”

McLaughlin and Neal are, obviously, not the first people to turn an internet craze into mainstream media, but a comedic documentary about the making of viral videos is about as meta and self-referential as it gets. Luckily, the creative commercial makers are effortlessly funny and genuinely charismatic — likely a big reason they are able to get people to do great things for their cameras — and their antics make for good television. And, presumably, they’ll make for good YouTube, too.

Rhett & Link: Commercial Kings airs Fridays at 10 p.m./11 p.m. Central on IFC.