The Best of MeTube

One year and 356 posts ago, I began sharing my favorite clips off of YouTube to you, my virtual audience. Today I'm going to share my favorite favorites of the past year. (Sadly, nobody submitted their favorites, so the mix CD prize will just have to go to me.) Sure, they're reruns, but it's summertime and time for reruns anyway.

In reverse order, tenth favorite to favorite favorite, here they are:

#10. The Temptations performing "For Once In My Life."



#9. The Moody Rudy toy.



#8. The Billy Nayer Show.



#7. "You'll Come One Day."

You'll Come One Day | Viral | SPIKE.com

#6. The Ball Buster Toy.



#5. Miami Bugs.



#4. The Hungarian sausage commercial.



#3. "Sister Ray" on Lawrence Welk.



#2. The GI Joe PSA parody with "The Motorcycle Song."



#1. Vader Sessions.



Let's hope there are some equally good clips to come for year two.

Short Attention Span Theatre 3

Yes! It's time once again to cram as many fun clips as possible into one minute, give or take! This time around, that consists of...

another classic commercial from the folks at Red Stripe...



arguably the best line in Dr. Strangelove...



one of those Smokey the Bear PSAs that used to scare the shit out of me...



an unexpected opinion from a very attractive movie critic...



a super-slomo raspberry...



Admiral Ackbar performing an excerpt from The Vagina Monologues...



and an acknowledgment of existence from Jeff Spicoli.

Short Attention Span Theatre 2

Just when you thought it was safe to blink...

Here are six clips that will take you less than a minute to watch altogether.

We have a quick insult from Groucho in A Night at the Opera...



...the highlight of Alex Karras's acting career, from Blazing Saddles...



...one of the great GI Joe PSA parodies...



...a talking thumb...



...an Out of the Past Robert Mitchum being transfigured...



...and a grateful postman.

Two more ads

Here are a couple ads I got a kick out of - the first is genuine; the second, almost but not quite.

First, a British PSA advising you to know who the person is before you actually let them in. It's cute and all, and then the last line comes along and changes EVERYTHING.



Then there's this ad. Apparently, the voice talent decided to have some fun and dub a different voice-over onto an ad for a local union. The visuals, the jaunty music and the tough city voice don't exactly blend, but they do make it much more memorable. (NSFW, by the way.)

Let's All Go to Confession

We're all familiar with the famous snipe "Let's All Go to the Lobby."



Which makes this effort (brought to you by the same folks who made the "Where's the Beef" ads) resonate a little longer. Whether we want it to or not.



Useless trivia time: this tune comes from the song "We Won't Be Home Until Morning."

VD Is For Everybody

Back in the '40s, soldiers were shown a film warning about having unprotected sex and its consequences. The film had to be pulled because soldiers felt the actress in the film was so attractive, they were willing to get an STD just to be with her.

This '70s ad reminded me of that story.



It's just so peppy, in a Big Band way. Everybody looks so happy, don't they?

PS - I like the viewer's comment that the jogger at :48 looks like Bill O'Reilly. I have to say, there's some real wit in a lot of the viewer comments. Sure, there's a few too many "LMAO!" and "I just wasted two minutes of my life," but I've laughed out loud more than once at some of the thing people have to say. Dry wit is this nation's saving grace.

Knowing Is *laugh* The Battle

This is a long one, but believe me, it's worth your while.

Back in the '80s, GI Joe ran on Saturday mornings. These poorly animated cartoons concluded with public service announcements about a minute long, saying things like "don't play in old refrigerators" and "stay away from live wires."

Eric Fensler, a Chicago filmmaker, remixed about two dozen of these, recutting and overdubbing to make whole new animals. Hasbro made threats and Fensler took them off his site, but the toothpaste was out of the tube.

I can't post just one. I'm tempted to post them all, but I'll leave you to investigate here. These are best watched one right after another - the cumulative effect is that much funnier.

Here's "Carnival."



"Nosebleed."



"Body Massage."



"Porkchop Sandwiches."



"Mr. Laffitti."



And finally, my favorite, "I Just Wanna Ride My Motorcycle." Notice the incomplete steering wheel and the guy's mustache floating free as he says the last syllable, plus the kid whose shirt and race change from shot to shot. The monologue is transcribed in the comments section.

Zinc Oxide and You

Here's two minutes from Kentucky Fried Movie, celebrating the films you used to watch in high school. From the first seconds, where the film sprocket holes have alignment trouble, to the chipper music, the stilted line reading, the way the announcer says "Yehhhs" at 1:35 and 1:48... This just NAILS it.

A parody is at its best when you can't tell it apart from the real McCoy. Watch and learn, boys, watch and learn.

Threepio wouldn't say it if it wasn't true

When I was a kid, Star Wars was everywhere, and I mean everywhere - I got a free poster from a box of Cheerios, every sports highlight reel had John Williams's music, kids played with the Millenium Falcon between Saturday morning cartoons.

(Tangent: in that last, the kid ran through his backyard, holding the MF, yelling, "Jump to lightspeed! We're gone! On to the Death Star!" I questioned the logic of announcing the destination when that was not, in fact, where they wanted to go. Even at six, I was too literal-minded for my own good.)

Anyway, the gang showed up in public service announcements too, and they were lighthearted ones, in contrast to just about every Smokey the Bear ad being designed to scare the shit out of you.

Here are two I remember watching during the Captain Kangaroo show. One encourages kids to get their shots...



...and here's an anti-smoking one. You've got to admit, Artoo looks cooler when he's working on a Marlboro.

And just in case you missed the adult appeal of Star Wars, here's a "don't drink and drive" PSA that's based in, you guessed, the Mos Eisley Cantina.