Lisa Donovan is an American

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 actress. As of September 2011 her YouTube

YouTube

YouTube is a video-sharing website, created by three former PayPal employees in February 2005, on which users can upload, view and share videos....

 channel has 712,000 subscribers and 200 million video views, putting it in the top 100 channels on YouTube. Lisa is one of the co-founders of Maker Studios, which helps develop YouTube personalities.

She is also a founder of Zappin Productions, a production company specializing in viral video

Viral video

A viral video is one that becomes popular through the process of Internet sharing, typically through video sharing websites, social media and email...

s. She is currently in charge of Creative Development.

Lisa Donovan on YouTube

Donovan uploaded her first video, "Introducing LisaNova," to YouTube on June 7, 2006. She has parodied a number of celebrities and public figures; her impersonation of Sarah Palin

Sarah Palin

Sarah Louise Palin is an American politician, commentator and author. As the Republican Party nominee for Vice President in the 2008 presidential election, she was the first Alaskan on the national ticket of a major party and first Republican woman nominated for the vice-presidency.She was...

 was praised in Wired

Wired (magazine)

Wired is a full-color monthly American magazine and on-line periodical, published since January 1993, that reports on how new and developing technology affects culture, the economy, and politics...

 as "ruthlessly hilarious", and in 2008 Ralph Nader

Ralph Nader

Ralph Nader is an American political activist, as well as an author, lecturer, and attorney. Areas of particular concern to Nader include consumer protection, humanitarianism, environmentalism, and democratic government....

 made a guest appearance in one of the skits. In a Forbes

Forbes

Forbes is an American publishing and media company. Its flagship publication, the Forbes magazine, is published biweekly. Its primary competitors in the national business magazine category are Fortune, which is also published biweekly, and Business Week...

 magazine article, YouTube founder Chad Hurley

Chad Hurley

Chad Meredith Hurley is an American co-founder and former Chief Executive Officer of the popular video sharing website YouTube. In June 2006, he was voted 28th on Business 2.0's "50 People Who Matter Now" list...

 highlighted Donovan's success as an example of the changing paradigm of entertainment. Donovan is also a co-creator of the popular YouTube channel 'The Station

The Station (YouTube)

The Station is an online sketch channel on YouTube created by a number of popular YouTube celebrities in the summer of 2009.-Creation and Growth:...

'.

Mainstream Success and MADtv

Lisa was one of the first YouTube content creators to cross over in to mainstream Hollywood when she was cast on Madtv

MADtv

MADtv is an American sketch comedy television series. It licensed the name and logo of Mad, but otherwise had no connection with the humor magazine outside the animated Spy vs. Spy and Don Martin cartoon shorts and images of Alfred E. Neuman that the show featured during the late 1990s. Its first...

 in 2006. She debuted in a spoof of The Ellen DeGeneres Show

The Ellen DeGeneres Show

The Ellen DeGeneres Show, often shortened to Ellen, is an American television talk show hosted by comedian/actress Ellen DeGeneres. Debuting on September 8, 2003, it is produced by Telepictures and airs in syndication, including stations owned by NBC Universal. For its first five seasons, the show...

, where she played Salma Hayek

Salma Hayek

Salma Valgarma Hayek Jiménez de Pinault is a Mexican film actress, director and producer. She received an Oscar nomination for Best Actress for her role as Frida Kahlo in the film Frida.-Early life:...

, the producer of the ABC Comedy Ugly Betty

Ugly Betty

Ugly Betty is an American comedy-drama television series developed by Silvio Horta, which premiered on ABC on September 28, 2006, and ended on April 14, 2010. The series revolves around the character Betty Suarez and is based on Fernando Gaitán's Colombian telenovela soap opera Yo soy Betty, la fea...

, and Rosie O'Donnell

Rosie O'Donnell

Roseann "Rosie" O'Donnell is an American stand-up comedian, actress, author and television personality. She has also been a magazine editor and continues to be a celebrity blogger, LGBT rights activist, television producer and collaborative partner in the LGBT family vacation company R Family...

. The episode aired on February 17, 2007. After signing a contract and only appearing in four episodes of MADtv, she left the following season.

In 2010 Lisa was given a role in Cosmopolitan

Cosmopolitan (magazine)

Cosmopolitan is an international magazine for women. It was first published in 1886 in the United States as a family magazine, was later transformed into a literary magazine and eventually became a women's magazine in the late 1960s...

s Fun & Fearless campaign for females.

In 2011 she was honored as Pioneer in New Media at the third annual Burbank International Film Festival alongside fellow honorees Bill Plympton

Bill Plympton

William "Bill" Calvin Plympton is an American animator, former cartoonist, director, screenwriter and producer best known for his 1987 Academy Award-nominated animated short Your Face. and his series of shorts Guard Dog, Guide Dog, Hot Dog and Horn Dog.- Biography :Bill Plympton was born in...

, Mark Kirkland

Mark Kirkland

Mark Kirkland is an American director. He has directed 69 episodes, from 1990-present, of The Simpsons, more than any other person.-Career:...

, Fred Willard

Fred Willard

Fred Willard is an American actor, comedian, and voice over actor, best known for his improvisational comedy skills. He is known for his roles in the Christopher Guest mockumentary films This is Spinal Tap, Waiting for Guffman, Best in Show, A Mighty Wind, and For Your Consideration as well as...

, Al Jean

Al Jean

Al Jean is an award-winning American screenwriter and producer, best known for his work on The Simpsons. He was born and raised in Detroit, Michigan and graduated from Harvard University in 1981. Jean began his writing career in the 1980s with fellow Harvard alum Mike Reiss...

, and Roger Corman

Roger Corman

Roger William Corman is an American film producer, director and actor. He has mostly worked on low-budget B movies. Some of Corman's work has an established critical reputation, such as his cycle of films adapted from the tales of Edgar Allan Poe, and in 2009 he won an Honorary Academy Award for...

.

Personal Life

Donovan was a student at the University of Colorado at Boulder

University of Colorado at Boulder

The University of Colorado Boulder is a public research university located in Boulder, Colorado...

 before moving to Los Angeles, California

Los Angeles, California

Los Angeles , with a population at the 2010 United States Census of 3,792,621, is the most populous city in California, USA and the second most populous in the United States, after New York City. It has an area of , and is located in Southern California...

. She is the sibling of fellow YouTuber and Maker Studios co-founder Ben Donovan, known on YouTube as thebdonski.

External links

• LisaNova at YouTube
  YouTube
  YouTube is a video-sharing website, created by three former PayPal employees in February 2005, on which users can upload, view and share videos....