Awesome Weird

Bianca Caderas and Kerstin Zemp’s off-kilter animated short film takes place in a weird, dystopian world where human contact is forbidden. Matta and Matto run an under-the-radar hotel that offers guests an opportunity to be touched without barriers – but there’s a strange and disturbing price for this freedom.

It’s been a long time since The Pink Panther series ended, but its music lives on. The musical mayhem makers Les Fo’Plafonds performed the Henry Mancini classic on a wacky mix of noisemakers: rubber chickens, squeaky pigs, and PVC pipes. Their YouTube channel has other treats like Thunderstruck on pots and pans and The Simpsons theme on bike pumps.

Landon’s Animation Wheelhouse invaded our screens with their unhinged version of Back to the Future. Now, take a magical journey through the Uncanny Valley to the North Pole with their unofficial sequel to Robert Zemeckis’ unintentionally creepy CGI holiday flick The Polar Express. The stuff that happens along these rails is even weirder than Snowpiercer.

Editor and filmmaker Neil Cicierega created this short story and photomontage about a group of campers who encounter a strange and creepy man who stares at people while they sleep in their tents. But things get really weird once they accept a bribe from The Sleepwatcher.

Brandon Tauszik and Joe Veix’s short film CHANNELVUE not only perfectly captures the aesthetic of early 1990s cable TV, it offers hilarious, weird, and demented surprises after hackers hijack a TV Guide channel’s broadcast. The random shows that appear on the guide are like a live-action version of Rick and Morty’s Interdimensional Cable.

There I Ruined It’s latest unholy creation combines the N.W.A. track F*ck tha Police with the Chicken Dance. The accompanying AI-generated music video is the icing on the cake, and the YouTube comment section is loaded with gems like “Nuggets with Attitude,” “Straight Outta Coopton,” and “Hen W.A.”

Most of today’s headphones play music stored on smartphones or computers – though a few have a built-in MP3 player. Philip Kaplan of Pudphones went even more retro by building Deez Headphones, a pair of over-the-ear cans and a head-mounted CD player. They even have built-in storage for extra discs, a remote control caddy, and a jewel case display.

A Taco Bell Crunchwrap Supreme faces an existential crisis in this warped animated short by Tim Hendrix. As the deliciously crunchy, folded fast food works to accept the dramatic changes in his life, he hopes to spread his message of understanding far and wide. Assuming someone doesn’t take a bite out of him first.

This stop-motion short from Spare Flesh is set in a dystopia where body parts become art. It follows a traveling salesman who stumbles upon a singing giant who lures him in with financial gain. Mixing comedy, horror, and music, Moving Parts delivers a surreal vision that’s both unsettling and amusing. If you love Tim Burton, this should be right up your alley.

Asia Pacific ridesharing company DiDi takes us on one wild ride in this ad spot titled DIDI. YES, I DIDI. 3 MINUTE 23 SECOND COMMERCIAL. Director Jim Hosking and agency Sunday Gravy created this whacked-out commercial which sees three friends out for a big night on the town. Their guide? A flute-playing, surfboard-riding Oompa Loompa in heavy metal hotpants.

(PG-13: Language) Do you like your anime weird and funny? Look no further than ToadBurger’s Costco Fahrenheit, a hilariously offbeat animated short about a cat with vengeance on his mind. After escaping an animal testing facility, he finds himself in the sites of the most dangerous member of Costco’s Loss Prevention department.

If you’ve ever heard the squeals of a modem or a fax machine, you know that sounds can transmit data. Music and science geek Benn Jordan got the crazy idea that he could train a bird to mimic sounds encoded from a PNG image, then play them back to reconstruct the image. Along the way, you’ll learn all about birdsong and how avians make sounds.

We watched in awe as daring men tore into a den filled with giant Asian hornets. After tracking the insects to their nests, they relocate them, let them build, then dismantle them to harvest the larvae, which are considered a delicacy. Andrew Fraser traveled to Vietnam to meet the Hmong tribesmen and their friendly neighborhood murder hornets.

(PG-13: Language) The comic duo of Syd & Olivia have some new furniture in their apartment – only their new chair isn’t an inanimate wooden object – it’s a man. And that’s not the weirdest part of this video. This sketch is the kind of unhinged silliness you need to watch when you could use a laugh. (Thanks, Rob!)

While unusual movies are still being made by directors like Yorgos Lanthimos, movie studios let more experimental films reach the big screen in the 1970s. HoloDraco explores some of the best bizarre films of the era, including David Lynch’s Eraserhead, René Laloux’s Fantastic Planet, John Carpenter’s Dark Star, and George Lucas’ THX 1138.

Paton Machines likes to build crazy vehicles. Over the last couple of years, he’s been working on a hybrid motorcycle-tractor that resembles a Penny-Farthing bicycle. After a wobbly initial field test, he got to work attaching a trailer in an attempt to keep it from falling over. We love how it starts up like a lawnmower.