Viral videos: Frank Underwood revelation and tree goats

18 Sep 2015

A Moroccan tree goat. Image via Michael Chinnici/Photo Workshop Adventures

This week in viral video wonderland, Kevin Spacey, aka Frank Underwood, reveals who he has his monologues with, while a bunch of Moroccan goats get all high and mighty in a tree.

Frank Underwood revelation

There have been few onscreen characters that have been more captivating in recent years than Kevin Spacey’s Frank Underwood from House of Cards.

Seeing him play the part of the ruthless American politician makes you feel he was basically put on this Earth to play the part.

So when Spacey spoke on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert last night about his character, he revealed who exactly it was that his character’s monologues are channelling to, that being Donald Trump.

Despite his character’s involvements with murders and cover-ups, Spacey said on the show that he sees worrying similarities between the show and real-life American politics. Yikes.

Uploaded: 17 September 2015 

Killer whales chase a boat

The killer whales are still bitter about Free Willy, it seems, after a new video has shown a pair of the majestic but deadly creatures following a motorboat on the open ocean.

I can’t say I’ve been stalked by a killer whale before, but I imagine it’s not a particularly nice feeling that a creature much bigger than you, that can flip your boat, is keeping pace with you.

“About five miles off Point Loma, we saw the animals but couldn’t determine exactly what they were until they approached our boat,” said Ben, the person who filmed the footage. “There was a pod of about 30 of them, young and old, small and large.”

At one point, he sticks the camera underneath the water to get a better shot of one of the killer whales, only for the camera to come out again with a creepy blood-red hue over the screen.

Uploaded: 12 September 2015

Alex Trebeck says Turd Ferguson on Jeopardy!

What is, hilarious? Well, those with a penchant for Saturday Night Live were pleased when a sketch making fun of the legendary game show Jeopardy! made it onto the actual show.

On the actual show, the contestant Talia gave the answer to a question: “What is the love ballad of Turd Ferguson? PS, hi Mom”.

If you don’t get the joke or reference it’s perfectly understandable, as its origin lies in the mostly not funny, but occasionally hilarious, Saturday Night Live.

On the original sketch, Will Ferrell playing as Alex Trebek says that Burt Reynolds had changed his name to Turd Ferguson. “Yeah, that’s right, Turd Ferguson. It’s a funny name,” said the Burt Reynolds character. And there you go.

Uploaded: 16 September 2015

Tree Goats

I’ve heard of ladder goats, but this is ridiculous.

Posing the question, “do goats grow on trees?”, a photographer called Michael Chinnici – who runs his own photography workshop – managed to capture some rather weird but hypnotic footage of a group of tree-climbing goats just staring into his camera lens.

The goats aren’t just there for show, however, as it seems that the friendly, bleating animals are also a rather important resource in the local economy because of what they poop.

Their diet of fruit and leaves in their digestive system leads to waste which contains dozen of indigestible seeds that are then harvested and used in everything from human food to cosmetics.

Go on, the goats.

Uploaded: 12 September 2015

Stevie Wonder goes carpooling

While carpooling is still a bit of a foreign concept to those of us here in Ireland, it certainly sounds like a bit of an uncomfortable situation to be stuck in the car with a co-worker just for the sake of convenience.

But imagine if you got to carpool with the legendary pop icon Stevie Wonder? Well for James Corden this was actually a thing for The Late Late Show, where Stevie joined him on a drive while the two sing away to Stevie’s songs.

I’m not jealous at all, really.

Uploaded: 15 September 2015

Grand Canyon from the stratosphere

Weather balloons are fantastic. When they’re not being confused with UFOs and actually measuring weather data, they are recruited by filmmakers and space enthusiasts to reach the edge of the atmosphere and shoot amazing video,

In 2013, Bryan Chan and his friends decided to do just that outside the Tuba City in Arizona.

The idea was to launch the camera and track its progress as it ascended and descended, but something in their ability to track it failed, leaving it stranded somewhere, perhaps in the same state.

Well, two years later, a hiker near the Grand Canyon came across the smashed equipment and went about returning the camera and footage to Chan and his group of friends.

Definitely worth a watch for some epic high-altitude scenery.

Uploaded: 10 September 2015

Stamkos vs drones

I don’t know who Steven Stamkos is, but with a hockey stick he’s got some serious aim.

The ice hockey player was rolled out to do some target practice, not only on an ice hockey goal, which was impressive enough, but they also recruited a few drones.

Unfortunately for the inanimate objects – and the producer’s budget – Stamkos’ aim was quite good in the sky, but there were also some drone casualties along the way.

“I hate drones,” he says while carrying the defeated shell of one.

That certainly appears to be the case, Steven.

Uploaded: 16 September 2015

Cats vs zombies

Take a guess as to what will be in this video? Yup, you guessed it, a gritty political thriller.

Ok, so maybe not. It’s what people on the internet want to see though, that being, a bunch of cute cats completely slaughtering mindless zombies.

The cats seem ridiculously disciplined, even for cats, as they find their way to save the young kitten with a range of machine guns and high-powered rifles.

There’s some pretty good CGI from the YouTube director Mr TVCow on display here and it’s worthy of a watch if you’re a fan of either cats or zombies, or both.

Uploaded: 10 September 2015

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Colm Gorey was a senior journalist with Silicon Republic

editorial@siliconrepublic.com