This week’s question comes from editorial coordinator Gwen Ihnat:
What is your favorite YouTube clip to share with friends?
Patrick Gomez
Patti LaBelle is an American treasure with almost 60 years in the music industry, but sometimes even all the stage experience in the world can’t save you from the ineptitude of Washington. In 1996, the “Lady Marmalade” singer was scheduled to perform “This Christmas” at the annual national tree-lighting ceremony, but things went off the rails quickly—and just kept getting worse after that. There may be videos with funnier singular moments (many of them on this very list) but few have the stamina of a Broadway farce like “Where My Background Singers?” Be it at 0:11 when LaBelle realizes she’s come on stage too early and sneaks back off, or 0:41 when she starts to look around as though something’s wrong but she soldiers on, or at around 1:00 when you realize she’s having to make up lyrics because her cue-card holder is failing her and the background singers have not arrived, all the way to 2:35 when she tries desperately to introduce a soloist in the band, this video keeps on giving. Although cringeworthy, this clip only brings me joy because, through it all, Patti LaBelle is a consummate professional who just keeps going, singing right after the one-minute mark: “I’m gonna help them all I can / Because I don’t have the right words and I have no background singers / Oh, I don’t / Whoo!”
Cameron Scheetz
As much as I’d like to highlight a work of pure comedic genius or some jaw-dropping display of raw talent, for me there’s no greater comfort than the waving bear. With over 21 million views, chances are you’ve already seen it; and, even if you haven’t, the delightfully literal title gives it away: “Polite Bear Waves Hello.” At just six seconds long, the clip delivers exactly what it promises and nothing more. But the mere sight of the burly Kodiak, sitting upright, and flitting its chunky bear wrist has become a never-ending fount of pure, giggle-inducing joy. Just as “aloha” is much more than a way to say “hello” or “goodbye,” I’ve co-opted the waving bear as a universal signifier of good tidings for all occasions.
Danette Chavez
All the setup that this clip of a skateboarding bulldog really needs is that it’s a clip of a skateboarding bulldog. But if, for some reason, you need more context for what makes this one of the most joyous moments captured on camera, Otto—an adorable Peruano like Paddington—set a Guinness World Record for “longest human tunnel traveled through by a skateboarding dog.” It’s my go-to clip for cheering up myself and others, which is why it’s bookmarked on both my personal and work laptops.
William Hughes
My favorite go-to clip actually dates back to the pre-YouTube era: A (wholly speculative) Nutri-Grain spot from Turnpike Films, which first made the online rounds way back in 2003. Watching it now, “I Feel Great” still makes me crack up, mostly on the strength of the performances from a host of actors whose names I’m now finding it borderline impossible to ferret out. (Although at least one of them, Terence Bernie Hinds, has been in a ton of TV stuff.) There’s something warmly nostalgic about watching these youngsters run around yelling “Babies everywhere” in completely deranged voices that fills my heart with joy; it’s a quick-fire dose of internet 1.0 silliness that I’m shockingly happy to revisit 17 years after the fact.
Shannon Miller
I don’t meander into the “challenge” section of the internet very often. But a year ago I was searching for more content featuring one of my favorite foodie figures, Jen Phanomrat, when I stumbled upon a collaboration that she did with fellow content creator Julie Nolke titled “How Hot Can We Go?” For the first two minutes, it’s your standard issue hot-sauce challenge as two charismatic women try a selection of sauces on an upward trending heat scale. But at exactly 2:25, things fall entirely apart thanks to a demonic sauce made with ghost peppers. The ensuing chaos is so perfect: the ominous firing canon sounds that punctuate every mistake, violent outbursts, heat-induced babbling (“I just peed,” “I’ve never met a Dave I liked”), walking off the set… it’s a comedic gift. When she’s not endangering her esophagus with friends, Phanomrat is also an excellent food blogger and a total joy.
Gwen Ihnat
Of John Mulaney’s three triumphant Saturday Night Live hosting gigs to date, “Diner Lobster” gets a lot of attention, but for my seven-minute laugh budget, I’m going with the game-show parody “What’s That Name?” When it premiered in a 2010 episode fronted by Paul Rudd, “What’s That Name” featured white people who couldn’t be bothered to find out the name of their doorman or cleaning person. The version from Mulaney’s second time as host is a brilliant commentary on sexism, in which contestants Doug (Mulaney) and Courtney (Cecily Strong) fail to identify some women in their social circles, even though they know who Chrissy Teigen and Lil Xan are. The not-so-secret weapon is the reappearance of surprise guest Bill Hader as host Vince Blaine, who gleefully points out Doug’s failings when he can’t identify his best friend’s girlfriend of four years: “Guess you just don’t consider her a human being.” Hader almost breaks when Vince is asked to list the names of his friends’ spouses—“Those guys? They don’t have wives. I roll with a group of problematic bachelors and we call ourselves: The Squad”—but Vince Blaine remains committed to destroying Doug right until the bitter end, piling all the cameras on him until he just gets more and more flustered. I’ve seen it five million times, and it never fails to kill me.
Sam Barsanti
I’m going to cheat a little, because this is a YouTube clip I just found recently and I haven’t shared it with many friends, but you’re all my friends so I’ll count it. It requires a basic knowledge of The Simpsons, specifically Rainier Wolfcastle’s McBain character, his partner Skoey, and the evil Senator Mendoza, as seen in the in-universe McBain movie, and it apparently originates from a Simpsons meme page on Facebook. Don’t be scared off by the words “Facebook” and “meme,” though; it’s impressively assembled and very, very funny. Unfortunately, saying too much more would spoil the gag. Just do one thing for me: Get… Mendoza.
Laura Adamczyk
For a time a handful of years ago, Scott McClanahan had a reputation for being something akin to a traveling preacher or carnival barker in the independent literary scene. He’d start his readings with prayer-like incantations, rocking back and forth with his eyes closed, before launching into whatever fiction/nonfiction hybrid he’d brought to read, sans explanation. Once, I saw him “marry” a crowd, sliding big plastic rings onto our fingers. I often fail at capturing the spirit of these readings, so I share this clip of the Crapalachia and The Sarah Book author to give people a taste. At the start of this Scott McClanahan reading, he offers a story about how he, Scott—both the writer and the character—used to punch himself in the face, before trying to get the crowd to sing his baby daughter to sleep, miles away. What really does it is his opening: I can think of no better way to begin a story than by shushing a crowd and saying, “I wanna tell you somethin’.”
Randall Colburn
I abhor ad copy and I adore Norm Macdonald, so when the two clashed on the early episodes of Norm’s bygone podcast, Norm Macdonald Live, I was a goner. I’ve written about Norm’s adventures in promoting the ManGrate, a grilling accessory that promises to “revolutionize the way people grill,” here before, but I can’t imagine answering this question with anything else, given that I’ve watched this supercut—variations have been deleted and re-uploaded to YouTube a few times, but the original has a forever home on Vimeo—at least once every few weeks since I first discovered it. Every second is gold—especially the bit from 2:08 to 2:28—but it really just serves as an encapsulation of everything I love about unfiltered Norm, from his grinning facetiousness to his potty mouth to his childlike refusal to play by the adults’ rules.
Katie Rife
Is it bad that the YouTube clip that’s brought me the most amount of joy over the past—oh God, it’s been 15 years now—is a video of Kelsey Grammer biting it on stage at Disneyland? Known colloquially, at least in my household, as “Fraiser falls down,” this short 34-second video is almost as old as YouTube itself: The clip first circulated in May 2005, just three months after YouTube’s launch in February of that year. Basically, Grammer was at Disneyland during the park’s 50th anniversary celebration, delivering what one can only assume was a droll comedic monologue, when, mid-sentence, he accidentally steps off the edge of the stage and eats shit. I’ve watched it so many times, the words are burned into my brain: “…trip through ‘It’s A Small World,’ pretending I was a UN interpreter—oh, good lord!” There’s a muffled crash, then a deep sigh. Grammer’s a total pro; he doesn’t even blurt out any profanities, making his subsequent apology totally unnecessary. And he wasn’t seriously hurt, which makes it okay to let out a snort of amusement when his entire body suddenly drops out of frame just a few seconds in. (In a 2019 interview, he said he was bleeding profusely enough that he did go to the hospital afterward, but ultimately it was just a bad scrape.) That’s the only explanation I can think of as to why this simple clip is so fucking funny—and it’s certainly got something going for it, given its enduring popularity online.
Alex McLevy
It’s long since passed into the annals of the Meme Hall Of Fame, but I will never, ever get tired of good ol’ Leeroy Jenkins. There’s something so timeless about a clueless person charging headlong into a situation—especially when paired with an earnest group of people who were doing their best to control the circumstances before he blows it all to hell—and reaping the scornful results. From the World Of Warcraft team’s precise calculations by Abdul, their number cruncher (“I’m getting 33.33…repeating, of course”) to the dispirited words of the various members as they watch the pitiful outcome of their adventure (“Great job, everybody!”) to the fact that their team is named “PALS FOR LIFE,” it just remains so damn funny. I know there’s plenty of “the real story behind Leeroy” videos out there, but I don’t want to know anything else. I just want to bask in the purity of Leeroy Jenkins: Extremely Bad WoW Teammate.
82 Comments
That was excellent.
I don’t know why, but this 10 second clip always cracks me up.
The Big Fat Quiz of the Year is the best thing ever.
That punchline though.
From the bottom of my heart, Washtali: Thank you.
No you never thought they’d like it. You already knew they’re a cat.
It is difficult to imagine nowadays, but in the earliest era of Youtube, the platform allowed isolated groups of people to connect with each other. One of the more prominent groups were atheists. Up till this point atheists were simply invisible in America to the point people were harassed if it was revealed they were atheists. For many people YouTube was the first opportunity to meet and interact with other atheists and many atheists groups started springing up as Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris and other sprung to prominence.
One of these groups was the ‘Rational Response Squad.’ They might have well been the closest thing to atheist fundies there ever was, but no one can doubt their infectious energy which in those days took the atheist community by storm. The Blasphemy Challenge was hugely popular and it centred around thousands of atheists denying the Holy Spirit as it was by the tenets of Christianity the one unforgivable sin.
But why did their head guy have such a huge ire for Christianity, even for atheist standards? Well, it is all explained in this video, part of his movie ‘’The God Who Wasn’t There’’ (where he reeeeally stretches the parallels between Christ and other messiah figures to support his thesis). The guy grew up in a fundamentalist school where children were blatantly mentally abused and terrorised over the idea of hell. For how this is all tied up to the idea of the Holy Spirit… well, I’ll let him tell his tale in the most brilliant heart-pounding two minutes of indie documentary film-making ever.
For the hugely important role this clip played in the early days of Youtube, I nominate this to be my favorite Youtube clip.
A few oldies but goodies…The proper response to many people posting on the internet, as well as the President telling us to inject ourselves with disinfectant/bleach:The best of SNL Celebrity Jeopardy! (especially this portion from Connery):Our favorite How It Should Have Ended (spoilers for Logan and Les Miserables):
In response to your last one:
That’s pretty much what happened in real life.https://www.muscleandfitness.com/athletes-celebrities/news/sylvester-stallone-lundgren-put-me-hospital-during-rocky-iv/
I always thought it absolutely laughable that a guy who punched with the force of 2000+ psi could hit Rocky’s face square like 30 times with unblocked hooks and crosses, and not only was Rocky’s skull not caved in, but he could still stand.Ahhh well, I’m watching Last Crusade right now, and Indy is taking 10 punches flush to the kidneys from Vogel, and is still standing. 😉
That’s fantastic and I did not know that story, so thank you for that!
At the moment, it’s this clip of Martha Stewart’s appearance on Conan O’Brien’s show on March 3, 2011. The main reason I love it so much is because at the 0:38 mark, you can see me sitting in the front row catching a string of beads that Conan threw from the Mardi Gras float that he and Martha ride in on.No, I am not joking. That’s me. At the 0:38 mark, look for the monitor in the bottom right corner. I’m sitting directly behind it at the foot of the stairs in the front row in a green shirt. Perfect catch by me, too. Some woman sitting behind me made a grab for them, but nope! They were all mine, and yes, of course I still have them. Yoink!
User name checks out! (especially if they’re an engine for catching things)
My name is a Jaws reference, but thanks!
I’m going to need … a bigger knowledge of popular culture.
The bit of dialogue I’m referencing is at about the two-minute mark. Also, this clip could easily represent every logically thinking person in this country trying to talk some sense into everyone who simply can’t keep themselves away from the beaches even though there is a global pandemic going on.
Forget Dr. Fauci or Chris Cuomo…we need yound Richard Dreyfuss at those daily coronavirus briefings (which Trump seems to have decided, after careful consideration his handlers told him, to stop attending):“I don’t think you understand, Mr. President…this virus…the novel coronavirus first spotted at Wuhan in 2019…it’s a perfect killing machine…all it knows is replicating its code and spreading to new hosts!”
Yeah, I guess you can only tell 300 million people to shoot up with bleach so many times before they remove you from the room, even in this climate.
I like to think that he had no idea why it was a bad look…“So…this whole ‘inject your lungs with disinfectant’ thing…I thought I came off better than expected…I’ve always been a clever out-of-the-box thinker, just ask anyone. The Gordian Knot? Forget the knot, just fire the VERY BAD knot-tier—I know a lot of knots, some very powerful, strong knots. Shroedinger’s Cat? You’re cat’s dead, lady! I told you not to get a cat imported from a Chinese wet market…which they were very shady, very sinister types. I told them—the media doesn’t report when I do these great things for our country—I told them the only kinds of cats we want are big cats, like the type my son likes to hunt.”Man, I just took a shower and I feel dirty all over again.
Let’s not forget a warning from history for an election this year that the mayor in Jaws 1 is still the mayor in Jaws 2.
The Russians must really like that beach.
Greatest. Live. Concert. Ever.Tool wishes they could play in that many time signatures all at once.
I have that clip favorited on YouTube and watch it about once a month. It’s what introduced me to the wondrous world of David Mitchell.
Big Bill Hell’s aka Fuck You Baltimore. Kills me every single time.
Fitzthistlewitz was by far the best game reviewer on the internet
There’s no video with this, but the audio never fails to have me in tears of laughter by the end.
This one is nearly ten years old now, but I have yet to see anything on YouTube that so perfectly blends comedy, history, subject matter, theme, and music.
I love the videos that blur the line between comedy and tragedy.
I enjoy sharing the greatest joke of all time, it’s about a moth:
the only clip….
If I had to pick just one? Well this is a good one. And a great example of the work of this fine, kind, sincere, caring, companionable Canadian comedy collective who’s been making video sketches for the Internet since before Youtube was a thing. I couldn’t miss a chance to talk them up a bit.
I guess I shouldn’t be surprised that people who write advertorial content promoting cultural products intended for children and people with social disorders have poor taste in youtube clips??
Walker told me I have AIDS
Right to the very end, it’s all just beautiful:
Reminds me of another favorite:
Here are some of my favorites
iBrain is what got me into Comedy Bang Bang (and podcasts in general). Gave it a listen because I was a Patton Oswalt fan, got hooked cause Brett Gelman’s goofball story. 10 years and 2 live shows later its probably been the most consistent piece of entertainment I’ve ever had the joy of being a fan of.
fools. There is but one correct reply, and that is “German Firestarter Lullaby”.
This one’s a little older than YouTube, but who can forget Bubb Rubb and Lil’ Sis extolling the virtues of whistle tips? The best part is near the end when they swerve into the wrong lane and blow a stop sign.
Yay Area! I immediately thought of this one. My friends never seemed to understand why I thought it was so amazing.
He-Man and Skeletor Dancing | Money Supermarket Commercial:The Gunfighter | A Short Film by Eric Kissack (narrated by Nick Offerman): 🙂
The dialogue from one 1999 film trailer goes surprisingly well with scenes from another 1999 film …
Toy Story got this mash up treatment quite a bit (Inception and Dark Knight being a couple of good ones), but this Requiem for a Dream/Toy Story mash up was always a memorable one just for the dichtomy of the material:(edit, after re-watching it I have to link the Dark Knight one too, just cause its very well done):
I can’t remember the last time I really caught something on youtube that made me feel like I needed to share it, maybe that’s cause its all so ubiquitous now though. But back in the day when people were recutting movie trailers, I did have a couple favorites that bucked the general trend of just turning them into horror film:
Brokeback to the Future:Ten Commandments I Hate About You:
The Shining one really kicked the trend off IIRC, and it’s pretty much the only one that I every watched more than once. (Because it made a horror movie into something else, instead of vice versa.)
Time Bandits was one of my favorite movies growing up. I can’t remember how many time’s I’ve seen it but one of the scenes that always cracks me up that I can revisit on the fly, courtesy of YouTube is when the great David Warner as ‘Evil’ explains why he should be the Supreme Being. He makes a compelling argument.
I remember that nutrigrain ad from back in the day! I shared it on many a message board in that pre-YouTube era (it wasn’t a real ad btw, just a gag, if you google turnpike films you’ll find some more of their gag ads). Another favorite of mine from the pre-YouTube era was this Japanese Nic Cage ad:
There’s lots of great LaBelle clips , this live performance is up there . Miss Patti demolishes the room. As Don Cornelius says after the song : “Patti , why are you beatin’ my kids up like this?” Patti: “’cause I love ‘em , that’s love whoopin’”
“What we be sayin’, when they ain’t aRROOOUN’?”“Get your poor hands off me!”“ …. splash some water on my hush in the bathroom of an au bon pain …”
“Oh my god when I get drunk I eat ribs!”
The Patti LaBelle video never fails to cheer me up when it pops into my recommendations. For me though I can never go past the PSA for people who microwave fish at work:
Ladies and Gentlemen, My sister meets the Prime Minister:
Oh, I know this one…
If Joe Biden runs on this platform, he’ll easily win the election.
Bozo Dubbed Over
Oldie but goodie that I will never, ever tire of:
A long one, but it’s got my favorite punchline of any video I’ve seen on the platform.A classic.Another classic.
I’ve never even seen the movie that this is from, but the absurd melodrama of this scene always gets me:An oldie but good…artifact of the pre-Youtube internet:And it almost feels like cheating, but it’s hard not to put Don Hertzfeldt’s “Rejected” on here:
Hot Rod is a deeply stupid movie that I first watched while incredibly high and I loved it. Chris Parnell has a rant about AM radio halfway through the movie that we had to go back and watch a couple of times because we could not believe what we were seeing.Also: “I’m genuinely sorry about the window!”
I just can’t not be happy after watching these two play Tico Tico on one guitar:
This isn’t so much a clip, but it is something I always watch when I am feeling down. Jeremy Jordan singing Celine Dion’s “It’s All Coming Back To Me Now”. It is completely wonderful, mostly because Jeremy Jordan is one of the best singers currently working, but also because he alternately plays into the song’s cheesiness while also taking it totally seriously. He is hilarious to watch throughout, and the key change will make you see God. The disastrous backup singing is a minor hiccup, but it is all worth it for the ending. Enjoy! (p.s. look in the comments for one from Jim Steinman who wrote the song!)
What a voice Jeremy has! A classic performance
In a similar vein of beautiful voices taking on a diva’s hit, Adam Lambert’s take on Cher’s auto-tuned “I Believe” is surprisingly gorgeous:
Thanks for posting that Simpsons clip. I had never seen (saw?) it before. Everytime I read or hear the word “Mendoza” my exact reaction is always a hearty “MENDOZA!!!!”.
The best YouTube video,objectively is “Fartznegger”,a collection of Arnold clips with some very tastefully added, fan made sound “edits” which are guaranteed to delight.
My personal favorite:
It’s not sophisticated or particularly clever but this compilation of the queen of the double entrendre never fails to crack me up.
Best. Reaction. Video.Ever.(OK, it’s a compilation. So sue me…..)
for those of us who have unsuccessfully navigated the “drunk olympics” and literally paid the real life costs of being an amateur, I present you with exhibit A in my personal case to “restore the greatness of the reputation of the 80s and why most current teenagers in modern society would NOT have survived them”; it’s kind of a prima fascie, but I digress. thank me later, ha ha ha…
I’d always heard about this clip from back in the day. before there was even a youtube or myspace, in the early years of the internet I managed to find it on a hotline server.Behold: