Videogum put together this nice little 2008 viral video retrospective, and if you can get past the fat kid singing at the beginning* without self harming, there’s some nice stuff on there. …Hold on a second… *sniff* …Sorry, that f-cking lion gets to me every time. Speaking of the sniffles, I want some of what O’Reilly’s snorting.

*Seriously, he’s animatronic, right? Please tell me that’s a robotic puppet. No way that’s a real person. Some Japanese engineer built that.

After the jump, there’s a YouTube video that you may or may not have seen – it’s gotten 13 million views.  It’s about a couple guys who saw a sad looking lion cub for sale in Harrod’s.  They bought it, named it Christian, and began to raise it, exercising it in the grounds of a nearby church until it got too big, and then reintroduced it to Africa.  A year later, they wanted to visit, but were told Christian was wild and wouldn’t remember them.  But of course he did. They hugged, someone filmed it, and everyone watched, shomiting with joy. (Meanwhile, Christian’s lion buddies secretly nicknamed him “Queen of the Jungle”)

The latest news is that Sony is in the process of acquiring the rights to a film about the story.

Why does everything that’s popular need to be a movie?  The beauty of the YouTube video is that it tells a heartwarming story in two minutes.  What are the other 88 minutes going to be about?  Does Christian join a hip-hop dance crew and save the rec center?  Battle an army of zombies?  Get framed for murder and win his freedom in a car race?  Team up with Chris Tucker and take down a drug cartel?  Needs more Dracula Bear.

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