Tubefilter Tuesday Picks – December 9, 2008

This week is all about animals. Sure, cats and puppies have been web video stars for years, but seldom were good for anything more than a one-time hit. But real live animals (not just the animated sort) are making waves (and landing sponsors) as stars of their own web series. This week’s picks, compiled by the Tubefilter News staff, are Rabbit Bites, National Geographic Now and Super Chill Monkey.

Rabbit Bites

At first glance, it throws you a little—what exactly is going on here? But watch a few episodes of Rabbit Bites from creator Nicholas Quixote and you’ll see why the series  has been able to pull in the voices of Patton Oswalt, Sidney Blumenthal, Jane Lynch, Garrison Keillor, David Alan Grier and other stars in what The New York Times called, “twisted and sublime.” The bi-weekly web series stars two rabbits, Buns and Chou Chou, as they roast and ridicule some of the topics du jour in pop culture, everything from Dateline NBC’s To Catch a Predator, American Idol contestants and Britney Spears. Doing their best Barbara Walters, they even sit down with celebs of all sorts (web and otherwise) like Mick Jones (from The Clash) Robert Scoble, ZeFrank and Rocketboom. The little Hollywood bunnies have even landed Purina Rabbit Chow as a sponsor.

National Geographic Now

There was a day when the only place for rich stunning photographs of wildlife and world treasures were the glossy pages of National Geographic magazine. And it would be only fitting that they would eventually get serious about piping out their high-quality video work in a regular web series for us to ogle over. This daily series National Geographic Now, launched quietly last week and is worth losing yourself in for a few minutes. This week’s episode (above) stars Lonesome George the turtle, the last giant turtle of his kind who still hasn’t found a mate to keep his species alive. Man, you think his chances would be pretty decent being the last giant turtle on earth!

Super Chill Monkey*

This gem from creators Unbuttoned Films follows a day in the life of a working orangutan (*not a monkey) actor in Hollywood, from riding the bus to undressing at an audition, and stopping for grub at his favorite taco stand. While technically they only have one installment of the series up, we would definitely like to see more of this hairy little web star. And with over 600k views from that one episode, a few more would probably be well received.