Bee Movie

It started in 2003, when Seinfeld asked Steven Spielberg about making an animated insect film; Spielberg took it to DreamWorks' Jeffrey Katzenberg, and Seinfeld ended up writing it with Spike Feresten, Barry Marder, and Andy Robin, working from New York through a teleconferencing rig installed in his office. He set it there too, calling the city "the Tigris and Euphrates of comedy." Barry B. Benson (Seinfeld) is a fresh graduate horrified to learn that his hive job will never change, breaks bee law by talking to a florist named Vanessa (Renée Zellweger), and, on discovering that humans bottle and eat honey, sues humanity. Matthew Broderick, John Goodman, Patrick Warburton, Chris Rock, Kathy Bates, and Oprah Winfrey fill out the cast, and Larry King, Ray Liotta, and Sting appear as themselves, or as bee versions of themselves. The marketing was as odd as the film: live-action trailers with Spielberg appearing opposite Seinfeld in a bee costume, and NBC skits billed as "Bee Movie TV Juniors."

Paramount released it on November 2, 2007, against American Gangster. It opened second with $39.1 million and ended at $126.6 million domestic and $293.5 million worldwide, against that $150 million budget. Critics called it mild (49% on Rotten Tomatoes, whose consensus labeled it "mostly forgettable"; A. O. Scott liked it, Roger Ebert gave it two stars), audiences gave it a B+, and it still picked up a Golden Globe nomination for Best Animated Feature and five Annie nominations.

Then, in 2015, the full dialogue transcript started circulating on Facebook and Tumblr, opening line and all, posted as a wall of text wherever a wall of text would annoy someone. In the fall of 2016 it went fully absurd: a video that simply kept getting faster, then a November 10 clip of Barry asking "ya like jazz?" that launched its own remix wave, then Avoid at All Costs' version that sped up every time the word "bee" was said, compressing the film to about seven minutes and drawing roughly 12 million views. Vanity Fair called the revival "totally bizarre." Seinfeld called it "kinda weird but pretty welcoming," and said he has no interest in a sequel.