The Funniest Videos on Youtube

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

One of my first jobs was working at Arby's while in high school, but I can fervently proclaim that my experience was nothing like this video, portraying a hopelessly naive new custodian--a McC--at McDonalds. This new customer comes into work and ready to get his hands dirty. His manager really defines cheeky as she gives him the training wheels to succeed at McDonalds. The staff humiliate him as he cleans up the McDonalds restaurant so he can see McC. Who is McC? McC is the fast-food spirit who makes his presence known only when McDonalds restaurants are really, really clean (which is never). To further elaborate on just how bizarre this video is, the main character tells himself--nay, orders himself--to "finesse that wall--that's the way!" And finally, thank the Lord, he finds McC--in his own reflection! Now that's McDonalds--helping to destroy America one day at a time.

I Have a Bad Case of Diarrhea
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.

Now, being a certified English teacher myself, I can confidently say that many English language-learners, and learners of any new language, want to know important phrases that they will likely use while interacting with native speakers. I sincerely doubt that "I have a bad case of diarrhea" is one of those phrases, but Mr. Verde and his team at "Zuiikin' English" disagree with me. This particular lesson opens with a young Japanese girl presumably in an English-speaking country, sitting down and in tremendous pain. She instructs a man with an American or Australian or German or something accent to "call an ambulance, please." He says he will and asks her where it hurts. After replying that her "stomach-uh" hurts, she cannot explain specifically what the problem is, so she resorts back to Japanese. Now we will be taught how to properly say the important phrase.

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

Of all the creepy children's TV show hosts, this is undeniably the creepiest. This video starts with a middle-aged man named Yogi-Oki-Doakee (I think) and he's in an odd, aerobatic position I could never imagine Mr. Rogers in. Then, instead of Big Bird, in storms some sort of stereotypical, Jar Jar Binks-esque Jamaican rooster cocking his way around the set as if he's in need of a restraining order. The rooster says something along the lines of, "Yeah, man. You can milks (inaudible, inaudible, inaudible)." Then a bunch of children enter at great apparent risk. One is dressed as a soccer player, another as a karate kid, another as a ballerina, but they cannot enter until they give Yogi a very uncomfortable-looking hug. This video is in many ways similar to the previous two, and hell, probably the rest, in that with each passing moment, it gets more and more unexplainable. For example, Yogi uses some weird wind analogy to explain the importance of breathing, and then his fucking cow keeps mooing "remember to breath!"

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

"Downfall" from Germany in 2004 is one of the greatest films ever made. Detailing Hitler's final days in his bunker, it featured a brilliant performance by Bruno Ganz. But Americans will always be amused by the German language; whether it's the Augustus Gloop/Guten Tag Hop Clop version or the angry Hitler version, it's always funny to us. So, some folks have taken one scene in which Hitler is very angry at his generals and re-dubbed it so that Hitler is addressing current-day topics. The topics are as varied as Kanye West to Second Life, but the funniest is certainly Hitler's reaction to Warner Bros.'s decision to postpone the release of "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince." Informed of the decision, Hitler shakes as he removes his glasses and instructs anyone not a part of the "Harry Potter fandom" to leave, before screaming and shouting. His subordinate recommends they see "Twilight" instead, which really gets Adolf going. It's funny because of the German language, but also funny because Hitler was probably mad enough to complain of such a thing.

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.

Which brings me to the Olsen twins. Filmed sometime in the early 1990s at the height of their popularity, the Olsen twins made a musical piece about a group of young girls cravin' for some pizza. Since then it has become lost in the closets of dusty VHS tapes, until somebody thought it would sound a lot funnier slowed down. They were right. This video is hysterical. To bring the previous points into this, nobody during the filming of this video ever thought that years later they would see something like this. The three supporting actresses probably regretted their performances (particularly the girl with brown hair saying something about "whip cream poured like waterfalls") but if you were them, you would probably be content with the fact that years later nobody would be able to identify you from the videos. Then comes somebody who has way too much time on their hands and releases a four-minute version of your worst performance for over two million people to see. The rest is history.


Youtube is only about a decade old. Lets hope there are many, many more decades to come of comedy gold.