The filmmakers behind the "Kung Fu Panda" franchise made a wise decision: Take a fluffy, lumbering, adorable animal and throw it into a few stylish action scenes. Results: comedy gold!
Since the beginning of YouTube, panda bears have become a go-to animal for entertaining the masses. People love their gracefully chaotic antics. Whether it's making a funny face, rolling around in the grass, dancing to a Top 20 hit, or popping up in unexpected places, an appearance by a panda almost always equates to a positive.
Prep for "Kung Fu Panda 2" by checking out the web's greatest panda videos of all time -- and beware, your face may not be prepared for the amount of smiling it is about to do.
9. The Most Pathetic Baby Panda Ever
We're wholeheartedly against calling a cute animal "pathetic," but it's hard not to laugh at this little panda cub's plight: the painstaking task of climbing over one teeny step in its pen. The baby bear tries so hard to make its way up only a few inches, wheezing and whining from beginning to end. Zoological schadenfreude -- an acceptable form of comedy.
8. I Like Pandas
Po from "Kung Fu Panda" isn't the only animated bear in town. Thanks to the folks at Aniboom, we also have this pair of odd pandas who love to dance, hop around and eat lollipops. The strange and colorful short is almost like the black-and-white bear version of "Ren and Stimpy," starting off happy-go-lucky and concluding with a twisted finale. Considering that pandas love sticking sugary candies to their butts, you can only imagine how weird it gets by the end.
7. Panda Climbs Birthday Cake
Happy Birthday, Su Lin and Zhen Zhen!
This video helps us realize that our younger selves were not that different from our panda counterparts. Like these growing cubs, when presented with a birthday cake, we also had the urge to climb on top of it and play. Unfortunately, ours were always made of actual cake, as opposed to the pandas' plastic version. There's far less tumbling and merriment for those around you when you're splashing around in chocolate frosting.
6. Pandas Drinking Milk
Of course pandas don't drink milk like normal zoo animals. Instead of slurping it out of a bowl, they have to suck down their calcium out of baby bottles while lying on their backs and kicking their feet in the air. As if they haven't melted our hearts already, they have to go and do the cutest thing ever. How are we supposed to appreciate human children when panda YouTube videos exist?!
5. Cee-Lo's 'Kung Fu Panda' Music Video
This may not be a straight-up panda video, but Cee-Lo Green (pre-"F**k You" popularity) helped the "Kung Fu Panda" series hit big on the web with a cover version of "Kung Fu Fighting," complete with break-dancing youngsters and a bearded leader looking a lot like Pai Mei from "Kill Bill." The characters of "Kung Fu Panda" make enough appearances to remind us of the tie-in, but it's Green's pop vocals and the absurd dojo setting that make the video memorable.
4. Panda Rips Off a Jacket
Just when you thought it was safe to think pandas were cuddly wuddly little puffballs of love, this video turns up. In this shocking video, a caged panda grabs hold of an unsuspecting bystander's denim jacket, using all his bear might to pull the coat into his cage -- along with the guy inside the coat. The video might scare you into never going to the zoo again, but on the other hand, we now have the utmost respect for panda bears. They do what they want.
3. Angry Panda
European commercials always get away with the craziest concepts that would never fly in the States. Take this string of commercials for Arab Dairy's Panda Cheese, featuring a man in a panda-bear suit who lashes out at those who ignore him. Whether he's breaking office equipment or pulling the plug on a hospital patient's IV, the panda at the center of the spots will never take "no" for answer. Don't mess with the panda.
2. Teach Me How to Panda
If you ever want to learn how to Dougie, head to the zoo and watch a panda do its thang. This video pairs a panda's sick moves with the recent hit song for the pinnacle of animal kingdom-inspired dance mash-ups. If you ever feel embarrassed getting your groove on on the dance floor, remember: You're not the first mammal to throw care to the wind while putting his hands in the air.
1. Sneezing Panda
Dancing Baby. Chocolate Rain. Numa Numa. All viral classics, and among them is the Sneezing Panda. With a new "it" video hitting almost every day, few YouTube sensations stand the test of time; yet this little "achoo" from a baby panda will forever leave its mark on pop culture. Perhaps because it gets down the basics of science: For every reaction, there's an equal and opposite reaction. In this case, that's a sneeze and a startled panda mother.
