Believe it or not, I can occasionally be a little bit moody. Sometimes, I simply get a frown on my face and not even all the Italian horror films in the world can turn that frown into a smile. I’m like a lot of people in that I’ve always had to battle that creeping depression and I hate that feeling.
Luckily, whenever I start to feel sad, I go to YouTube and I watch the greatest viral video of all time. Now, I know that some people will always debate whether or not a 3-minute viral video deserves to be considered entertainment in the same way as a 2-hour film and a 22-episode season of a well-written television series. I can see both sides of the argument but ultimately, it comes down to the one thing. The video below never fails to make me feel happy.
Without further ado, here’s my favorite YouTube video of all time: Noisy Kittens Waiting For Dinner!
By the way, I know that most people seem to like the jumpy kitten the best but I think they’re all adorable. The little quiet orange one is just simply to die for.
I’d say that not many people don’t know who this cute, little yellow furball is. From the time he stormed the American shores through the first Pokemon series up to it’s most current version. Then there’s the yearly Pokemon DS titles from Nintendo. If there’s one thing which many fans of that franchise agree on it’s that Pikachu is the one character everyone recognizes.
But Pikachu has branched out from just those anime series and DS games he has dominated for over a decade. He has made his way into viral YouTube videos which has remained known only to anime and manga fans but has slowly gained traction with non-fans as well. Below are just some of the viral video memes starring the one and only Pikachu in all his Cute Glory.
A few days ago, an old clip from the Today Show showed up on YouTube. That clip was from 1994 and it featured Katie Couric and Bryant Gumbel trying to figure out what the Internet is. Apparently, the clip was posted by an employee of NBC. If you’ve seen the clip, you already know that while it’s mildly amusing, it’s also pretty tame.
Well — joke’s on you, NBC. As my friend Ron always reminds me whenever I post a picture on plixi during Thong Thursday, the Internet is forever and now, so is that clip.
So, here’s one of the many copies of that clip that can be found on YouTube. See it now before NBC demands that it be pulled down.
(Incidentally, my mom always hated Bryant Gumbel and I can still remember, when I was 13 or maybe 14, laughing so hard when my mom turned on the TV and was greeted by his image. “Pendejo,” she said as she changed the channel.)
After seeing this video highlighted on G4TV’s Attack of the Show a couple days ago I just had to go to Youtube and favorite the video.
What else is there to say other than I knew televangelists were actually Dark Lords of the Sith in sheep’s clothing. My favorite part is close to the end where the hapless congregation just filed into his lightsaber strikes one after the other like they wanted to die.
Over the past few days, I’ve become obsessed with a four-part video on Youtube. I don’t know who uploaded this video or why she (or he) felt the need to share it with the world. I suppose I could always go to the user’s channel and send a message but I don’t think I will. To be honest, I know that even if I did get a reply, the answers would probably just be a disappointment and certainly no where close to matching what I’ve imagined. Sometimes, the best questions are the ones that are never answered.
Anyway, as for the video itself, it was apparently filmed in 1987. Though it’s never explicitly stated, I think that this video was made in a high school gym. Apparently, the occasion was a fundraiser that was meant to help pay for the senior prom. For nearly 40 minutes, members of the Class of ’87 walked out onto a makeshift stage and showed off some of the tackiest prom dresses in the history of tacky prom dresses. Seriously, with one or two exceptions, the dresses here run the gamut from horrid to hideous. These were dresses from the Gurl, What Were You Thinking? collection.
(If I may say so myself, my prom dress was a 100 times better than anything seen here. It was a black mini with a pleated skirt and a sequined bodice. I was all boobs and legs in that dress and I’m sure some people would say it was too much of both. But so what? I felt like a movie star. I also did that silly thing where you throw your garter and then you dance with whoever catches it. It was fun and all but I never got the garter back and I hate to think of what the guy who caught the garter did with it after the dance.)
So, why does this video obsess me so? Well, admittedly, some of it is the fact that whole thing — from the balloons that decorate the stage to the gift certificates to McDonald’s that are given out as door prizes — is just so amazingly cheap that it actually becomes charming in much the same way that a 50s B-movie or Tommy Wiseau’s The Room. I love listening to the breathless commentary of the two hosts and comparing it to the models who, for the most part, almost seem to know that, 23 years in the future, this whole thing is going to end up on YouTube. I also love how, as the video goes on, the audience goes from being politely attentive to openly talking amongst themselves as the show goes on. Finally, the static camera work and the fact that every model is a star for at least 15 seconds, is reminiscent of the early Factory films of Andy Warhol.
I also like to watch the models and to wonder where they are now and whether they even remember the night and the show that has captivated me. Since they were all high school seniors in 1987, they would be in the 40s now. I wasn’t even 2 years old when this video was made. I don’t know any of them and (unless they’re reading this) they don’t know me but we have a bond in that we’ve all shared the same hour. After watching this video several times, I feel as if I know most of these models. I’ve studied their body language as they walked across the stage. I’ve noticed who smiled and who looked miserable. I’ve created elaborate backstories for them and figured out who has ended up married to who and who ended up getting drunk on prom night and crashing his car (and tragically killing his date) afterward. I’ve figured out what terrible secret links together all the guys wearing the sunglasses at night. At this point, actually meeting or talking to anyone actually in this video could only be a massive disappointment.
However, I think the true appeal of this video is that it’s both a record of an actual event but yet it’s totally devoid of context. The simple act of watching it becomes a search for meaning in which you’re guaranteed to find whatever it is you want to find.
I’ve never actually seen Tommy Wiseau’s The Room in its entirety but I plan to as soon as I have 99 minutes to kill. However, I have read countless reviews of this film online and, as a result, I ended up doing a search for the film on YouTube and I came across a few thousand scenes from this film. And I quickly fell in love with what I saw.
It was hard to narrow down all of the scenes to just one so I decided to include two. If I could, I would just include every single clip of the Room on Youtube but that would make for an awfully long post.
So, here’s the two scenes —
The first one is only a few seconds long but it features my name.
For all of you single aspiring filmmakers out there, it’s not difficult to win my heart. Just name a character after me. She doesn’t even have to be a good girl. In fact, I prefer it if she’s not. Because after all, how else is she going to live up to the line, “YOU’RE TEARING ME APART, LISA!”
Our second scene is about a minute and a half long and I’m thankful for it because, for as long as I can remember, I’ve always wondered what guys talk about when they hang out on the roof. I always figured they were up there enjoying the view, thinking about life and love, and maybe talking about how one of their friends is so annoying and dresses like he’s 40 and has no idea how bad his hair looks after he did whatever it is that he was trying to do with it. I mean, that’s what I always do whenever I’m on a rooftop with my friends. But it turns out I was wrong.
Apparently, they just act like guys.
One reoccurring theme I find whenever I read about The Room is the idea that The Room is one of the worst films ever made. Having never seen the film, I can’t say whether it is or not. However, I can say that unlike a lot of “independent” filmmakers Tommy Wiseau actually made his film and now it’s all over Youtube.
I recently discovered that Dallas’s own Newy Scruggs has become something of a Youtube cult figure as a result of a report he filed from San Francisco shortly before the start of the World Series.
I think Newy is the sports reporter for one of the local stations down here. I’m not sure which station because, to be honest, I make it a point not to watch the news. (I rely on rumor and street innuendo for my knowledge of current events…) However, I do know about Newy because when there’s somebody living in your city with a name like Newy Scruggs, you better know about it.
So, now the question is this — what lies in the future for Newy Scruggs? Will he become a famous, legendary Youtube messiah like the Garbage Day Guy from Silent Night, Deadly Night Part 2?
Or will Newy Scruggs suffer the same tragic fate as past Youtube stars?
One thing is for sure. I will always enjoy randomly saying “Newy Scruggs.”
This is definitely stretching the definition of entertainment but one just has to watch the brave little Akita as it confronts the sinister bowl of evil. Watch how it falls back on it’s ninja and samurai training (Akita’s are originally from Japan and were used as guard dogs during the Feudal Era of Japan when samurai and warlords ruled the land) and begins to sneak towards it hoping to catch it by surprise.
It even tries to confuse it by pretending it’s about to attack with one of it’s deadly paws only to pull said paw of destruction back.
Yeah, this is one brave pup who is probably huge by now and can probably destroy his enameled nemesis by his bark alone.
Yesterday, me and my sister Erin saw the documentary Winnebago Man at the Dallas Angelika. The Angelika is absolutely my favorite theater in the entire world. It’s also just about the only place in Dallas that you can see offbeat, out-of-the-mainstream movies like Winnebago Man. Add to that, the Angelika is located right next to the Mockingbird DART rail station and it’s right next to the Townhouse Irish Pub. There’s also a Virgin Megastore, an Urban Outfitters, and a Victoria’s Secret (among other stores) right next to the theater. So, for me, a taking the train to see a movie at the Dallas Angelika is like a scaled-down version of one of those “shopping spree” montages that always seem to turn up in romantic comedies. It’s like catch the train, shop for lingerie, see an art film, get drunk on Guinness, and then take the train back home. What could be better?
Well, there is one problem with the Dallas Angelika and that is that it is located right next to Southern Methodist University. For those of you who aren’t natives of Dallas, SMU is where the rich kids go to major in Business, Rohypnol, and youthful fascism. Going to the Angelika means you’re always going to have the risk of having more than a few SMU toadsuckers and dumbfugs in the audience with you. You can always spot them because they’re the ones who make it a point to laugh the loudest at the most obvious of jokes. I guess it’s their way of trying to convince the rest of us that they actually are capable of semi-intelligent thought.
Quite a few of them were in the audience for Winnebago Man. Erin and I were unlucky enough to attract the attention of two of them. They sat down in front of us and, as we waited for the movie to begin, they turned around in their seats and asked us if 1) we lived nearby and 2) if we wanted to “hang out sometime.” And while I’m certainly not a stranger to occasionally lowering my standards for the sake of a good time, I do have a problem with people who ask me if I want to “hang out,” as if I should just be so flattered to have the opportunity to be a part of their social circle. So, I smiled and said, “No, but my sister’s available.” Erin still hasn’t forgiven me.
Now, you may be wondering why these two idiots would have any interest in seeing a documentary not entitled Jackass or Girls Gone Wild. Well, once the film started, it quickly became obvious that they (and most of the other SMU blackshirts in the audience) were fans of the original Winnebago Man video that inspired this documentary. That video consists of outtakes of a man named Jack Rebney attempting to film a promotional video for Winnebago. In the outtakes, Rebney continually forgets his lines, angrily curses, complains about the heat, and continually fights with an intern who, at one point, literally throws a towel at him. An excerpt from the video can be found below:
Now, I have to be honest. Up until I first saw the trailer for this documentary, I had never heard of the “Winnebago Man,” (also known as the Angriest Man In The World) and I’m almost as addicted to searching YouTube as I am to divulging TMI details of my life on twitter. However, apparently, the Winnebago Man is one of the most popular videos on Youtube. As director and narrator Ben Stienbauer explains in this documentary, a large part of the appeal of the Winnebago Man outtakes is that you’re literally seeing the worst day of Jack Rebney’s life. Not only is he making a video promoting the Winnebago (or as I call them, Murdermobiles, because it’s impossible for me to imagine anyone other than a serial killer owning one) but he’s apparently doing it in the worst heat possible and getting attacked by flies as he does so. It’s hard for the viewer not to relate his bad day to her own bad days. However, what really makes the video memorable is that Rebney doesn’t just quietly accept the heat, the flies, and the frustration. Instead, he fights back in the only way he can — with constant variations on the “F” word. Just watching the excerpts included in the documentary, I found myself wishing that I had simply told the two guys sitting in front of us, “Do me a kindness and fuck off.”
The documentary Winnebago Man beings with Ben Stienbauer telling us how he first saw the footage in the early 90s (in those pre-youtube days, it was apparently passed around on VHS tapes) and how the sight of angry, dehydrated Jack Rebney came to obsess both him and several other filmmakers. Eventually, Steinbauer decides to try to track down Rebney (though he initially believes that there’s a good chance that Rebney’s dead) to find out what happened the day that infamous Winnebago video was filmed and whether or not Jack Rebney is indeed the angriest man in the world.
The first half of Stienbauer’s film is taken up with the search and for me, this is the best part of Winnebago Man. Stienbauer makes for a likable protagonist and the aspiring detective in me loved watching as he explained, step-by-step, how he went about finding the elusive Jack Rebney.
Even better, Stienbauer devotes a good deal of Winnebago’s Man first half examining why and how people become internet celebrities. As Stienbauer correctly points out, most Internet celebrities are not known for being succesful. Instead, they — like Jack Rebney — often become famous as a result of having something humiliating and degrading happen to them while being filmed. One example that Stienbauer makes effective use of is the infamous “Star Wars” kid who became the most popular video on YouTube and ended up having a nervous breakdown as a result. In many ways, Internet fame is the cruelest fame because not only is it a fame based on failure but the failure is usually very personal. Stienbauer himself admits that there’s a certain morbidity behind his desire to find Jack Rebney. He wants to see is Rebney has survived being known as the “Winnebago Man.”
Well, Stienbauer does find Jack Rebney and it turns out that Rebney has survived. In his 80s, Rebney is nearly blind and lives an isolated existence in a cabin on a mountain. Stienbauer finally visits his idol and discovers just who exactly the angriest man in the world really is.
For me, Winnebago Man is far less effective once Stienbauer actually finds Jack Rebney because it turns out that, in real life as opposed to in outtakes from a 20 year-old promotional video, Rebney is kind of a pain. While Rebney first attempts to present himself as being a calm, rather mild man (in an attempt to counter his angry reputation), he soon starts to make regular phone calls to Stienbauer (all of which were, of course, recorded by the filmmaker) and gradually, he reveals his true self.
What is that true self?
Well, he’s kind of an asshole, to be honest. He’s essentially an angry, incredibly boring old man who still can’t get over the fact that it’s not 1955 anymore. When Stienbauer asks him what he wants to do with his Internet fame, Rebney says he wants to deliver a political message to everyone younger than him. That message, by the way, is that Dick Cheney’s a crook. Well, no shit. Thanks for sharing. Rebney doesn’t seem to get that my generation figured that out way before his generation did. In the end, Jack Rebney just comes across as an angry old crank who wants to complain about the world being fucked up when he’s a part of the group that fucked it up in the first place.
I mean, thanks for trying to tell me how to live my life but I think I’ll survive quite nicely without the advice. Quite frankly, I don’t have much use for the Jack Rebneys of the world.
Winnebago Man is an interesting documentary that examines just what exactly it means to be famous in today’s world. Though Jack Rebney himself eventually proves to be unworthy of such interest, the story of how Ben Stienbauer tracked him down and the “relationship” (it’s never exactly a friendship) that is created as a result is fascinating and thought-provoking. I remained interested in Jack Rebney’s story even as I found myself wanting to ask him to do me a kindness and shut the fuck up.
Through the Shattered Lens 