My $1.65 billion YouTube playlist

It looks like Google might will buy YouTube for $1.65 billion. Excellent! Now, my personal playlist can reach an even wider audience. Who wouldn’t enjoy ...
   1. Trailers from the five original Planet of the Apes films, including a rare clip of Charlton Heston accidentally shooting himself in the foot.
   2. The last 3:27 of my nephew’s soccer practice, which I later learned he forgot to attend.
   3. The Handelman twins’ bar mitzvah. I’m the one buttering a turkey sandwich.
   4. Approximately 9 hours and 36 minutes of Hong Kong martial arts footage. (Deleted: copyright issues.)
   5. Live-action Simpsons intro. (Deleted: copyright issues.)
   6. French Skittles commercial with Johnny Depp dressed as an orangutan.
   7. Music video: “Jessie’s Girl” by Rick Springfield. (It’s a cool song!)
   8. Rare footage from Bush inauguration where Dick Cheney accidentally shoots himself in the foot.
   9. My re-enactment of scenes from Star Trek. I play Kirk. My neighbor, Jim Duffy, plays Spock. A floor lamp doubles as Scotty and McCoy. (ILM SFX deleted: trademark infringement.)
   10. My recent visit to the San Diego Zoo. I attempt to communicate with a mangabey using American sign language as it gnaws off my hand.
   11. Me, as Abraham Lincoln, giving a backwards recitation of the Gettysburg Address.
   12. A turtle crossing the highway. He doesn’t quite make it.
   13. Some guy at the mall slipping on a freshly waxed floor and breaking his collarbone. (Deleted following subpoena by attorneys for Orange Julius.)
   14. My neighbor, Jim Duffy, serving as “grand potentate” at an impromptu pagan ritual held in his basement. (Deleted: privacy complaint.)
   15. Music video: “I Get Excited” by Rick Springfield. (What? That’s a cool song, too!)
   16. A home movie of my birth, which for some reason closes with an exorcism.
   17. My re-enactment of scenes from Seinfeld. I play Jerry and George. An ottoman with a wig stands in for Elaine. Michael Richards returns as Kramer.
   18. That turtle footage, which I accidentally uploaded twice. (Deleted: injunction issued on behalf of the ASPCA.)
   19. Jerky video-phone footage, taken on a stormy night, of what might be a UFO landing in my backyard, but was probably just a weather balloon piloted by garden gnomes.
   20. Me, as John F. Kennedy, reciting my “patriotic manifesto,” with my neighbor, Jim Duffy, dressed up as Jackie K. (Deleted owing to ongoing FBI investigation.)
   Advertising synergies are driving the YouTube deal. With my personal playlist—plus the site’s zillion clips of high-school track meets, buzz-cut garage bands and dimly lit film-school fare—they should pitch MasterCard immediately. $1.65 billion? This stuff’s priceless.

—Posted by David Gianatasio

October 9, 2006 | Permalink