Charlie the Unicorn

Plot

In a quiet meadow, Charlie, a unicorn, is resting, before he is awakened by two other unicorns. As Charlie awakes from his slumber, the other two unicorns inform him that they have found a map to the mythical "Candy Mountain," and that he must come with them on their journey. Charlie initially refuses, and goes back to sleep. The blue unicorn begins to jump on Charlie, insistent that he should come, and both begin to pester him with details of the mountain, causing him to begrudgingly give in to their demands. The trio begin their journey in a forest, where the two lead Charlie to a Liopleurodon; the two unicorns converse with the Liopleurodon, who supposedly guides them on their quest with a simple roar. The trio then crosses a bridge, much to the delight of the pink and blue unicorns, who repeatedly tell him that they are on a bridge.

When the trio arrive at Candy Mountain, the letter "Y" of the CANDY sign comes to life and sings a song, welcoming Charlie to the mountain and imploring Charlie to go into the cave. When the letters explode, Charlie reluctantly goes into the cave. The other unicorns say goodbye as Charlie is locked inside and knocked out. When he awakens in his original spot, he realizes that they have taken one of his kidneys. The video then immediately ends with the credits.

Characters

Production

Independent animator Jason Steele initially conceived Charlie the Unicorn in 2005 as a flash animation test for his mother, who enjoyed unicorn-related conversation. Steele first imagined the video's plotline when he was running around his house, chanting "La la la!" repeatedly, then quickly envisioned the majority of the plotline shortly thereafter; according to Steele, the video's conception happened "all at once; there was no editing." The video is primarily structured around surrealist humor and dark humor. Steele claims that the former was inspired by musician Logan Whitehurst, who frequently communicated with Steele via e-mail and composed the theme song for his 2003 computer-animated short film Secret Agent Bob; he describes the latter as "contrast[ing] to how bright and cheerful" the video's atmosphere is.

Steele drew Charlie the Unicorn using Adobe Photoshop and Adobe Flash, and animated it in After Effects and edited in Final Cut Pro. The audio was recorded using Amadeus Pro, and the music was recorded with Logic Pro. The video also contains a musical number titled "The Candy Mountain Cave", featured during the sequence where Charlie refuses to enter the Candy Mountain Candy Cave and soon becomes the victim of a musical number hosted primarily by the mountain's marquee letter "Y", who is backed by his partners "C", "A", "N", and "D". Although the blue and pink unicorns were originally chosen to sing the song, Steele was unable to use their voices to sing at a rapid pace, and resorted to using the Letter "Y" instead.

Reception

Charlie the Unicorn has become increasingly popular since its inception. Following its posting on Newgrounds in 2005, Geoff Swanson of YouTube posted a copy of the video on the website in 2006, where it rapidly gained popularity. It reached a total of approximately 8 million views internetwide in 2007. The video climbed to forty-six million views in March 2010. It currently has 67 million views on Geoff Swanson's YouTube upload, and 29 million views on FilmCow's official YouTube upload.

Online magazine Salon described the video as "The unlikely adventure of a crotchety unicorn" and stated "We often feel like Charlie the Unicorn. Annoying, brightly colored colleagues poke at us with their curly horns as we snooze at our desk, promising far-off, sugar-coated delights. Do we muster the energy to follow them, hoping some sweet payoff will break the unbearable bleakness of our daily existence? Can they be trusted?" The series has also attracted a number of celebrities, including British television personality Alex Zane, who has openly considered himself a fan of Charlie the Unicorn, and entertainers Kevin Pereira and Olivia Munn. Brian Hamlin of The Hollywood Reporter considered the video to be "incredibly dumb and annoying" yet "really funny and weird too full of unicorn joyness and music." In 2009, Time named Charlie the Unicorn number 49 in their list of "YouTube's 50 Best Videos", stating "Charlie the Unicorn proves that something doesn't have to make any sense at all to earn a cultlike following."

The cast of Charlie the Unicorn also appeared on May 23, 2008, in the music video for Weezer's single "Pork and Beans". The music video was directed by Mathew Cullen of the video production company Motion Theory and features many internet phenomena, including Charlie and the blue and pink unicorns. The character of Charlie first appears in a sequence parodying the G.I. Joe public service announcements starring animated versions of the band as children, where the character Gung-Ho of the G.I. Joe franchise appears as their mentor and notably has a tattoo of Charlie on his chest. All three unicorns appear at the end alongside the band and various other phenomena. On November 22, 2008, as a feature of the YouTube Live streamed event, the cast of Charlie the Unicorn were featured in a short film directed by creator Jason Steele featuring YouTube Live colliding with real life, causing several various memes to come to life, namely Rick Astley making a comeback and the world's weather conditions being altered in favor of raining chocolate. The short sequence was promoted with a forty-three-second video depicting Charlie and the two unicorns attempting to defuse a bomb before being attacked by a large group of seagulls; the short had no connection whatsoever to the video it was promoting other than advertising purposes.

Merchandising lines produced by a partnership consisting of FilmCow and retailer CafePress as well as Hot Topic have been launched in response to the video's popularity; the merchandise features various quotes from the video and generally features the pink and blue unicorns, although Charlie appears occasionally, and is sold in several forms including t-shirts, pins, coffee mugs, and bandannas. On March 1, 2009, creator Jason Steele released a video to accompany Hot Topic's Charlie the Unicorn merchandising line titled Charlie the Unicorn and the Tomb of Horrors; the video follows Charlie and the two unicorns scaling an ancient chamber inhabited by "The Weasel," a shamanist weasel who has attempted to call upon forces of evil that laid waste to the world ten thousand years prior.

Sequels, spinoffs, and parodies

As mentioned above, three sequels have been made: "Charlie the Unicorn 2", "Charlie the Unicorn 3", and "Charlie the Unicorn 4" released in 2008, 2009, and 2012, respectively. On 23 February 2016, Film Cow released a video called "Charlie the Unicorn: The Grand Finale Kickstarter" in which it was announced that there was a thirty minute finale planned. On 24 February, it was announced in a Live Stream of Charlie the Unicorn that if enough money for the finale was raised, then Aubrey Plaza would be hired to voice all of the characters. As of February 2016, Plaza had not responded.

The spinoff videos "Charlie the Unicorn Hot Topic", "Charlie the Unicorn Live YouTube", "Charlie the Unicorn Live YouTube 2", and "Charlie the Unicorn at Playlist Live" were also released.

Steele also produced a parody series, titled "Charlie teh Unicron". "Charlie teh Unicron" is based around "what the Charlie the Unicorn series would be like if it was written by random internet people". Another parody, "Charlie the Yannicorn" was made in 2013. That same year, during the Detective Heart of America: The Final Freedom Kickstarter, another parody "Charlie the Unitective Heart of America" was released, featuring Heart of America as Charlie. Although not released on FilmCow's main channel, it can be found on a playlist.