Sometimes I think Youtube was made for me. Buried deep in the vast pit of self-made cat videos, archival footage of historical events, and your favorite old TV shows are the most absurdly hilarious videos imaginable. In my opinion, some of them include the following:
McDonalds Custodial Training Video
I used to live in Korea and was an observer of the uniqueness that is Asian languages. According to Wikipedia, this video originated from a Japanese program called "Zuiikin' English" from 1992. The host of the show, some guy named Fernandez Verde, explained his odd pedagogical theory that individuals learn languages like they exercise. Whatever validity that theory had was eliminated by what followed.
There's something in Japanese, then in a narrative, mono-tone voice comes, "I have a bad case of diarrhea." That would be absurd enough, but now here's where the pedagogy comes into play. Three Japanese women in spandex pump their firsts up as they sing, "I have-eh baed case of diarr-i-a!" (In the exercise, the word "diarrhea" is signaled by the crossing of their arms around their stomach.) Other useful expressions learned are "take anything you want" and "spare me my life" (for the same girl who is mugged by two men--what an awful trip she is having) and "hasta la vista, baby!" which, obviously, isn't English.
First of all, I cannot plausibly think of a situation where an ambulance is necessary for diarrhea. Second, if I'm learning another language, that's probably one of the last things I want to learn how to say. Damn you, Verde!
Hippie Gets His Own Show Teaching Yoga With the Help of a Giant Cock
At this moment, it becomes unethical at best and frightening at worst. As the children, all of them appearing younger than the age of ten, construct their yoga positions, Yogi moves about "helping" them. He whispers to one, "Are you breathing, Christian?" as he hovers above the boy who probably just pissed his pants from fear. Okay, now I really can't explain this guy's fucking behavior, because he then has his head under his ass as he mimics a chicken (I guess); two disturbed young girls stand by, not quite sure if crying will help or hinder their chances. My comments, desperate as they are to humor, will not do justice to the remaining minute of the video, so just watch, and keep your kids away from Yogi-Oagi-Doakee and his creepy yoga. As Youtube commenter RaymondIsWin wrote, "this guy is in prison, right? Right?"
Siskel and Ebert Uncensored
Siskel and Ebert have been mentioned frequently (here, here and here). One thing that I miss most about them is their humor, which was evidenced when this youtube video surfaced four years ago. The video contains three segments from the 1980s where the two are preparing promos for their show. The first part of this video is rather tense and awkward to watch as the two come close to screaming at each other. "This is not the part that's supposed to match, slick," an angry Ebert says. "Give it a moment's thought. What are we doing now? The promo. Do you know what they have to match? Nothing...welcome to the exciting world of television, a holy new field for you to begin to learn in." Siskel is clearly shaken. "Well-spoken, Roger," he mutters. "Well," is the reply, "that's something you rarely hear." Siskel does eventually get the last line. "That's this week on 'Siskel...and...Ebert...and the Movies'...and the asshole--and that's Roger!"
The next one, which appears to be from the same shoot, features the two burying their hatchet in the best way men know how to--ignoring it, refusing to apologize, and instead ridiculing somebody else. In this case, those who will be ridiculed are Protestants (Siskel was Jewish and Ebert is Catholic). Siskel insists that WASPs run the country and everyone should ban together to overthrow them. Ebert is a little hesitant to get involved, but he eventually does, teasing Protestants as people who "sort of want a religion." Now Ebert's really having fun, noting that Jews and Catholics were "burning each other when Martin Luther was just a gleam in his mother's eye!" Then Siskel claims that the biggest decision a Protestant has to make is "what color yellow tie to fucking buy," and then Ebert says that Protestantism is "the only fucking religion that has the Reader's Digest as a prayer book."
The final segment (in this Youtube post it's played in the middle) is probably the funniest, as the two do what they did best--mock each other. Ebert mocks Siskel's stumbling of the English language and Siskel makes fun of Ebert's weight. Winner: Siskel comes close, but Ebert wins in all three.
For additional laughs, view one of the many clips of the two on Letterman.
Orson Welles Drunk Outtake
You may have thought that Orson Welles gave his best performance as a drunk man in "Touch of Evil," but then you haven't seen these outtakes from the 1970s. Welles--the man behind the War of the Worlds panic, "Citizen Kane" and guest star of "The Muppet Movie"--is really, really drunk in this footage of a commercial for, ironically, wine, constantly missing his ques and (if not for the respect the other actors and stand-ins likely had for him) really annoying the others. The best moment is when he utters "aaaghghaaagghaha" before delivering truly Shakespearean lines.
Hitler Reacts to Harry Potter
Olsen Twins Gimme Pizza
Recently, a paranoid Irishman watched archival footage of the release of Charlie Chaplin's "The Circus" from 1928. In barely a moment of footage, he spotted an elderly woman holding what appeared to be a cell--I'm sorry--mobile phone. Concluding that there was no other explanation, he posted at least one video and explained his conclusive hypothesis: that a time traveler dusted off the DeLorean and went back to 1928 to the premiere of a Chaplin film. By now it's been debunked as most likely being a hearing aid, but the point I'm trying to make is that nobody on Earth thought that the time-traveling lady with a cell phone would end up being analyzed by historians eighty years later. That lady is long gone and we will never know who she was. She is historically irrelevant, except for the fact that someone years later thought she was a time-traveler.
Similarly, for years people have pounded their chests telling us that there was a Munchkin who committed suicide on the set of "The Wizard of Oz." During the Tin Man scene in the forest (in which, if you pay very close attention, you will you notice several birds walking around the set), Dorothy, the Scarecrow and the Tin Man dance away, and just before the next scene, it's there: a Munchkin, who we're told was depressed and heartbroken because of another Munchkin, hanging himself. Now we're also supposed to believe that several hundred people on the set didn't notice it, that the editing team didn't take out the shot and order re-takes, that a Munchkin was there even though the little people weren't filming their scenes yet, and that for decades nobody noticed a hanging person on the set of one of the world's most famous movies. It has since been clearly identified as a zoo bird, but the point is the same. Nobody, seventy years ago, thought that people would go back-and-forth about something so minuscule.
Youtube is only about a decade old. Lets hope there are many, many more decades to come of comedy gold.
Also, Werner Herzog reads Where's Waldo (also, Madeline and Curious George)
ReplyDeletehttp://youtu.be/EvWh6PMi9Ek