My Ten Favorite YouTube Channels

If you go out to YouTube today, you’ll see that they’re celebrating their tenth birthday! They gave us this video to celebrate…

I shudder to think what this blog would be like without YouTube. Any blog, for that matter. Or Twitter, or Facebook. We all love it. Sometimes I just go out and watch videos. You’ve heard of going to your happy place? For me, that’s YouTube.

My tastes in videos run more to old TV shows, music, and weird stuff, a lot of which is related to the first two. Here are my ten favorite “go to” channels when I’m just looking to be entertained.

The Museum of Classic Chicago Television (Fuzzy Memories): Have to start with this one, because it’s my favorite. The MCCTv now has their own website, but it started out as just Rick Klein, Mr. Fuzzy Memories himself, uploading videos that he had collected and that others had around the house of Chicago television. Not the actual shows, mind you, although parts of them are inevitably shown during the videos. We’re talking station ID’s, sign-ons and sign-offs, commercials, interstitials, Emergency Broadcast System tests, weather warnings, partial or full newscasts, and other goodies. One such goody is video of the night someone managed to hijack the signal of WTTW, the PBS station, and broadcast several minutes of himself in a Max Headroom mask being rude and obnoxious, and occasionally NSFW, during that night’s telecast of Doctor Who. This is the original upload; there’s a better copy on the Museum’s website.

Robatsea2009: Fuzzy’s channel is pretty much dedicated to Chicago television from the 1980’s and earlier. Rob’s channel doesn’t restrict itself like that: he has video from all over the country, maybe even Canada. Mostly commercials and promos, but he occasionally finds a real gem. This, for example. This is a Proof-of-Performance test done recently on all CBS stations. You probably didn’t see it, since it was aired overnight. If you woke up during the test, you probably thought you were dreaming.

RwDt09: This is a fantastic channel. RwDt09 assembles collections of introductions to TV shows. He has a series of videos called “Stay Tuned,” which choose a night and a TV season and shows introductions from all of the shows on that night. Others include intros from syndicated shows, new programs for a given year, obscure TV themes, etc. Here, for example, are shows from Tuesday night in fall of 1960.

NRRAarchives: There are four channels here. Most of the videos are from American Bandstand or The Saturday Night Beech-Nut Show. Here’s an example: a performance of “Rawhide” by Link Wray and the Wraymen.

The Oddity Archive: Ben, who runs the archive and the associated website, says this about the Archive: “The Oddity Archive is a web series that revolves around the “cultural dustbin”, especially as it pertains to media.” He produces longish videos on a wide variety of media-related topics on a more-or-less regular basis. Here is a shorter one on one of myfavorite subjects: test cards…

Simon’s Cat: A popular feature, especially among cat lovers, like me. We can relate to many of the misadventures, such as this one.

MuguMogu: This channel documents the life of Maru, a large and bushy cat who lives in Japan with his people and his feline friend Hana. Maru just turned 8; here is the video celebrating the event.

Johnnyboy792: From the looks of it, Johnnyboy just started, but his videos have been excellent. A lot of nostalgia, including his “Memories of” videos. Here’s his video on 1971.

Tommy Emmanuel: Tommy Emmanuel, CGP (the honor bestowed on him by the great Chet Atkins) is an incredible fingerstyle guitar player. There are a lot of Tommy Emmanuel videos on YouTube, but this is his official channel. This was his year-end message for 2013, including “Only Elliot,” a song that he hadn’t finished by that time, though it certainly sounds finished to me…

enra – motion graphics performing arts: I saw this group last year, and was suitably impressed. I think you will be, too. Their website explains that they’re “an entertainment unit which presents the ultimate fusion of images and live performance.” This is their “Metropolis.”

Congratulations to YouTube on making it for ten years, and may you have many more!