Charlie the Unicorn
A grumpy unicorn gets badgered into a Candy Mountain quest in this absurdist fever dream. They wanted his kidney. Time magazine marveled that something so nonsensical could earn a cultlike following — and for once, the magazine was right.
Jason Steele's FilmCow posted "Charlie the Unicorn" to Newgrounds on November 26, 2005. Two relentlessly chipper unicorns badger a grumpy one toward Candy Mountain ("Shun the nonbeliever! Shuuuun."), only to reveal it's a trap — Charlie wakes up robbed of a kidney. The animation was crude, the premise nonsensical, and that was the whole appeal. A 2006 YouTube upload by Geoff Swanson spread it across the internet.
By 2007 it had 8 million views and was being quoted in every school hallway ("They took my freaking kidney!"). Time magazine observed that "Charlie the Unicorn proves that something doesn't have to make any sense at all to earn a cultlike following." Steele made sequels in 2008, 2009, and 2012, then a five-part Grand Finale finished in 2021 and a Christmas Eve 2024 epilogue. Charlie cameoed in Weezer's 2008 "Pork and Beans" video alongside a who's-who of viral stars, and the original Swanson upload has passed 68 million views.
Keep talking about it (Reddit)
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