Blue Helm

Thank you, American Idol, for providing us with yet another opportunity to watch awful (yet strangely awesome) YouTube videos of your aspiring singers. I thought William Hung was unstoppable, or maybe these guys. But Wednesday night’s episode of Idol proved to all of us that the viral power of America’s most popular television show remains in force.

The night this piece aired, “Pants on the Ground” had already made it into the top ten Twitter trending topics (try saying that five times fast). And yesterday morning, the song had stolen three spots on the same Twitter list. That’s very rare. But thanks to General Larry Platt’s catchy tune and hot dance moves, this video became viral within seconds of its airing on national television. Mashable put it nicely yesterday in a blog post: “Paula’s gone and Simon has one foot out the door, but nine seasons in, American Idol can still be counted on to deliver viral video gold.”

UPDATE: The best online covers to “Pants on the Ground” can be found here. Grunge, acoustic and, of course, Neil Diamond. Bravo!

We’re very excited about Christmas here a Blue Helm. One of my favorite parts of Christmas are all of the classic movies associated with it. Here are a few great clips from a few Christmas movies I love:

I love The Christmas Story. Such good writing:

The latest Christmas great:

I can’t believe this movie ever happened, but it still hilarious:

I’m always grateful when Heman explains things like Christmas to me:

This is a Classic:

What are some of your favorite Christmas movie clips?

Mr. T is hilarious, and so is his Snickers ad campaign from last year. If you missed it then you’re in luck! We’re not being paid to show these clips and are not endorsing Snickers in any way other than giving props for making an awesome ad campaign. Enjoy the clips and have a great weekend!

Here’s a little bonus Mr. T for those who just can’t get enough:

YouTube is a wonderful and treacherous place. It can provide hours of entertainment, but can also suck the life out of you as you search for the real gems that can be found therein. I have tread through many videos in our young YouTube years and want to share a few of the better ones I have found. You may have already seen some of these videos, but they are worth another view. We’ll post more in future. What are your favorite videos?