The judges have spoken, and five finalists have been chosen for the Yahoo! Talent Show, the online video competition dedicated to discovering the hottest original talent on the Internet. After reviewing thousands of submissions, and receiving tens of thousands of votes and comments from fans, judges Tom Green, Maria Sansone and Ask a Ninja have selected Justine Ezarik, Ben Grinnell, Rex Hermogino, Stanley Sowa, Jr. and a team called Renzhe Parkour. Talents range from singing (Hermogino) to variety show antics (Ezarik) to stick figure comedy (Sowa), short films (Grinnell) and some amazing urban acrobatics (Renzhe Parkour). Each of the five finalists is vying for a development deal to star or produce their own show on Yahoo! and $50,000 cash.

• Justine Ezarik, submitted 21 short videos to the competition, all random activities, including juggling cell phones at a Wal-Mart, waiting for a PlayStation 3 (also at Wal-Mart), a music video about not getting a return email from her mother, and other short clips. Justine’s clips have been viewed over 27,000 times.
• Ben Grinnell, also known as Awkward Rick, produced and submitted four comedic short films, all covering different subjects, including “Monster Love,” fun man-on-the-street interviews, and “Saint James Zoo” where zoo volunteers have tended to get a little too close to the wildlife. Awkward Rick’s four videos have been watched nearly 34,000 times.
• Rex Hermogino, Rex submitted two music videos, one called “Love on the Internet,” made in what appears to be his living room, and the other called “Downtown” made on the urban streets. Rex’s videos have been watched 106,000 times.
• Renzhe Parkour, a physical discipline of movement, is performed by a group of four friends (Justice Maynard, Rob Ray, Kris “Rice” Kropfelder, and Jason Mobley). The team scales walls, cars, railings, and other objects by adapting their movement to efficiently move over, under, through and around these obstacles in their environment. The group's urban scaling has been viewed over 40,000 times.
• Stanley Sowa, Jr., also known as StickFigureComedy, submitted four videos to the competition, each featuring a comedy or sketch comedy routine performed by a stick figure with voice-over. StickFigureComedy has been viewed more than 5,600 times.

WHAT NOW?

The five finalists will be profiled on the site, starting Wednesday, Dec. 6 and be sent through three online video challenges, two of which will be available for viewing starting on Thursday, Dec. 7. The final challenge – each finalist’s pilot program – will air Monday, Dec. 11, and final voting by users and judges takes places Dec. 12 -13. A winner will be announced Dec. 14 with their winning video pilot airing on the site that day.