No water moccasins were harmed in the making of this video.

November 12, 2012 5:12 PM

Hey, water moccasins! [SLYT]
posted by casarkos (78 comments total)

I am ashamed of myself when I laugh at people. But not enough to keep me from laughing.
posted by HuronBob at 5:15 PM on November 12, 2012 [2 favorites]

I peed myself at 1:05. Best movie moment of the year -- bite me, Wachowskis.
posted by eugenen at 5:17 PM on November 12, 2012 [7 favorites]

Dobumagizzamogah!
posted by darksasami at 5:22 PM on November 12, 2012 [3 favorites]

"Heh. She called us wa..."

"Shut up and smile, Steve. She's got treats."
posted by BitterOldPunk at 5:27 PM on November 12, 2012 [32 favorites]

I hate you. You're so emu-y.
posted by Sing Or Swim at 5:29 PM on November 12, 2012

I don't know how you can look at an emu and not think "living dinosaur".
posted by hanoixan at 5:30 PM on November 12, 2012 [8 favorites]

WAT?
posted by clvrmnky at 5:34 PM on November 12, 2012

The face being made at 1:05? Oh yes. I have made that face before.

I REGRET NOTHING
posted by elizardbits at 5:35 PM on November 12, 2012 [1 favorite]

Same thing happened to us on a similar driving safari type place, those emus are mean!
posted by Hazelsmrf at 5:36 PM on November 12, 2012

The others were all wondering what her problem was with emus.
posted by SillyShepherd at 5:44 PM on November 12, 2012

Every animal in this video has a really goofy look on its face.
posted by codacorolla at 5:45 PM on November 12, 2012 [3 favorites]

Except for the emus, which are terrifying.
posted by codacorolla at 5:47 PM on November 12, 2012

Okay, I'm taking a deep breath here. I'm not gonna freak out. Everything's cool.

I just have to say this one thing, then I'll show myself out.

A WATER MOCCASIN IS A KIND OF SNAKE.

(┛◉Д◉)┛彡┻━┻
posted by Sokka shot first at 5:47 PM on November 12, 2012 [11 favorites]

I kind of think that you're not getting the joke. Also, emus!
posted by arcticseal at 5:49 PM on November 12, 2012

no they are the kind of shoes you wear on boats
posted by elizardbits at 5:50 PM on November 12, 2012 [26 favorites]

elizardbits, actually, I think that emu is pretty much how I picture you.
posted by maryr at 5:52 PM on November 12, 2012 [5 favorites]

City folk - they just get the willies scared out of them for the darnedest reasons.
posted by chambers at 5:57 PM on November 12, 2012

Driving a car among animals? This is gonna end really well.
posted by DU at 6:02 PM on November 12, 2012

If you take a date there, do not try the old hole-in-the-bottom-of-the-popcorn trick.
posted by sourwookie at 6:05 PM on November 12, 2012 [9 favorites]

As a kid I somehow had the definitions of emu and muumuu reversed in my head.

Now I'm confused again because this video would probably be just as terrifying and hilarious either way.
posted by argonauta at 6:06 PM on November 12, 2012

EEM-yoo
posted by Sys Rq at 6:07 PM on November 12, 2012 [3 favorites]

STEFON: "This place has everything — rope nets, dust, sneezing, screeching suburbanites, water moccasins…"
SETH: "What are water moccasins?"
STEFON: "It's when you roll a midget up in bubble wrap and use him as a flotation device."
posted by Nomyte at 6:10 PM on November 12, 2012 [10 favorites]

Can someone gif that?
posted by Ad hominem at 6:10 PM on November 12, 2012

Having attended Eastern Michigan University for WAY too long, anything EMU related is even more humorous.
posted by HuronBob at 6:19 PM on November 12, 2012

Someone needs to gif me that image at 1:05 with the caption TREAT YO SELF
posted by elizardbits at 6:20 PM on November 12, 2012 [1 favorite]

from the video:

I hate emus I hate emus

from the youtube activity feed:

Emus Dancing

emmyemmynoel commented 2 weeks ago

Oh my gosh I LOVE this!

i don't know what to believe anymore
posted by arsey at 6:59 PM on November 12, 2012 [1 favorite]

I live on a river. If our water moccasins were that big (and/or had horns), the whole damned town would be dead.
posted by Benny Andajetz at 7:01 PM on November 12, 2012 [3 favorites]

Damn, nature, you scary.
posted by louche mustachio at 7:04 PM on November 12, 2012 [1 favorite]

Can someone gif that?


Yes.



Which part?
posted by louche mustachio at 7:12 PM on November 12, 2012

I can't decide which I like better: wordless gibbering or "Why am I so afraid of emus?!"
posted by chatongriffes at 7:12 PM on November 12, 2012 [1 favorite]

They have a bunch of ostriches at our farmer's market, and they are really terrifying. A giant bird, motionless as it inspects me with an air of 'ah, mammals, yes we used to stomp your kind into the mud when we ruled the earth. Perhaps it is time for us to again take back our rightful place. Starting with your delicious human eyeballs' is something I don't want to cope with at seven on a Saturday morning while I'm rooting around for goat cheese and heirloom tomatoes.

Also I think those ladies were drunk or overpowered with heat stroke.
posted by winna at 7:14 PM on November 12, 2012 [1 favorite]

OH MY GOD IT'S THAT EMU.

Strawberry Plains is no more than half an hour from where I grew up, and I can personally confirm that THAT FUCKING ONE-EYED EMU is, in fact, a dick. He's the sort of emu that, if he could possibly arrange it, would be waiting with a baseball bat in a dark alley for you to walk on by, and you would wake up in a bathtub of ice with one less kidney and an empty bucket that used to contain animal treats next to you.

Also, these people seem like totally normal Knoxvillians to me (come visit! We don't bite! We are scared of large birds though!)
posted by WidgetAlley at 7:21 PM on November 12, 2012 [41 favorites]

Metafilter: THAT FUCKING ONE-EYED EMU

sorry
posted by HuronBob at 7:30 PM on November 12, 2012 [1 favorite]

Why doesn't she roll up the window?
posted by Brocktoon at 7:37 PM on November 12, 2012 [6 favorites]

I can't decide which I like better: wordless gibbering or "Why am I so afraid of emus?!"

It's all gold. Gold! Thank you for posting.
posted by Diablevert at 7:43 PM on November 12, 2012 [1 favorite]

Also, these people seem like totally normal Knoxvillians to me

Though it is slightly outside of their documented range, it seems it might be a good thing for a Knoxvillian to be able to correctly identify a water moccasin.
posted by louche mustachio at 7:47 PM on November 12, 2012 [6 favorites]

Also, these people seem like totally normal Knoxvillians to me (come visit! We don't bite! We are scared of large birds though!)

It was the way they tried to drive away from the birds rather than roll up the window after throwing snacks to divert the beasts that made me suspect drunkenness. You hurl the snacks, the animals go for the flying treats, and you run fast as a bunny in the other direction. This is guaranteed to work on petting zoo goats, which might look adorable but are mean little snack thugs.
posted by winna at 8:17 PM on November 12, 2012 [1 favorite]

TREAT YO' SELF
posted by louche mustachio at 8:17 PM on November 12, 2012 [19 favorites]

When you live in a farm sometimes other people's animals get loose and wander into your fields so when you wake up you have an extra horse or a new herd of dairy cattle or whatever. On one memorable morning that was to lead to an exciting day and a long drawn out two weeks of our neighbors building complicated traps and chasing them to and fro as well as growing suspicion that they had been allowed "escape" on purpose, we had 3 free range emus. I don't think they ever did find the owner.
posted by fshgrl at 8:20 PM on November 12, 2012 [2 favorites]

oh god yes
posted by elizardbits at 8:23 PM on November 12, 2012 [2 favorites]

Emu Terror I can barely gif

TREAT YO' SELF

Thank you louche mustachio
posted by Ad hominem at 8:27 PM on November 12, 2012 [3 favorites]

This made me laugh heartily, partly because it's funny as hell and partly because it reminds me of the time that my brother and his friend were tripping balls on LSD and wandered/trespassed onto a reasonably successful emu farm.

Apparently, after being chased for some time and having a wild, bickering argument as to whether their situation was real or merely the illusions created by the action of chemicals on the brain, they were surrounded by a large number of fairly sinister birds that packed in around them and did...nothing. Ultimately, they were only saved from being kicked to death by birds by a man shouting at them with a bullhorn from the other side of the pasture.

"If you want to live," he yelled, "you are going to need to walk VERY CALMLY to where I am!"

I nearly die every time I picture this scene.
posted by sonascope at 8:51 PM on November 12, 2012 [29 favorites]

Also, I don't know what she says at 1:12, but it kills me nonetheless.
posted by sonascope at 8:54 PM on November 12, 2012

oh god yes

Was that in response to the gif, or are you having a lot more fun than the rest of us this evening?
posted by HuronBob at 8:54 PM on November 12, 2012 [1 favorite]

We had a milk cow from down the road that regularly escaped and came to hang out on our lawn. It became routine to loop the dog's leash around her neck and lead her back home. I would not attempt that with an emu. I might never leave the house again if I saw an emu on the lawn.
posted by winna at 8:55 PM on November 12, 2012 [1 favorite]

I had no idea water moccasins traveled in pairs.
posted by relish at 8:57 PM on November 12, 2012 [3 favorites]

Kitchen emus.
posted by HuronBob at 8:58 PM on November 12, 2012 [3 favorites]

I am really embarrassed at the sounds that video made me make.
posted by mudpuppie at 9:03 PM on November 12, 2012

Also, I don't know what she says at 1:12, but it kills me nonetheless.

Several minutes of close analysis have led me to conclude that she is saying DOOPUHTHAGEEZAPAGAH!
posted by louche mustachio at 9:04 PM on November 12, 2012 [4 favorites]

A few thoughts on emus:

1) Gah!

2) The Dark Crystal

3) I was at a petting zoo a while ago that had emus. I was standing by their enclosure just watching them warily when a little girl of 5 or 6 walked up and said to the emu: "you're ugly and I don't exactly trust you, so, here". At which point she threw her cup of animal feed through the fence and ran off.
posted by wabbittwax at 9:15 PM on November 12, 2012 [19 favorites]

This would go well slo-mo with the Inception BWAHHHH ... BWAHHHH
posted by zippy at 9:19 PM on November 12, 2012

at the end why was she yelling at a couple of watermelons? she crazy
posted by facetious at 9:27 PM on November 12, 2012 [3 favorites]

You want to be careful around emus.
posted by MrBadExample at 9:34 PM on November 12, 2012 [2 favorites]

Those emus have gotten used to running the place. That's a problem—the kind of problem you need a large, unpredictable marsupial to fix. Think the deer are gonna do it? The camels? Please. You need a kangaroo for that kind of job.
posted by dephlogisticated at 9:48 PM on November 12, 2012 [4 favorites]

"If you want to live," he yelled, "you are going to need to walk VERY CALMLY to where I am!"

This is the last thing anyone on acid wants to hear.
posted by elwoodwiles at 9:52 PM on November 12, 2012 [4 favorites]

So what in god's name is this place? A petting safari zoo drive-thru thingie? Is this a creation of warmer places in the United States like the South, or do these monstrosities exist elsewhere? Who in god's name thought it would be a good idea to have humans drive by in cars and encourage weirdly spoiled animals to stick their heads through the windows of cars? That is a massive lawsuit just waiting to happen – from an animal rights organization or an angry customer or both.
posted by koeselitz at 10:08 PM on November 12, 2012 [1 favorite]

hi water moccasins
posted by louche mustachio at 10:11 PM on November 12, 2012 [1 favorite]

Is this a creation of warmer places in the United States like the South, or do these monstrosities exist elsewhere?

Pick one from a list of safari parks!
posted by rh at 10:22 PM on November 12, 2012

2) The Dark Crystal

Oh god that's it! I was trying to figure out why the emus where making me kind-of-maybe shriek in terror every time they showed up and that's why. Fucking Skeksis.
posted by grapesaresour at 10:42 PM on November 12, 2012 [2 favorites]

Well, eem you too.
posted by nebulawindphone at 10:53 PM on November 12, 2012

Once upon a time a neighboring SCA group was asked to do a demo on opening day of a zoo at a small city not too far from me. (I kept joking that we were the H. sapiens exhibit.) So, the schedule pretty much was 30 minutes of beating my friends with sticks, 60 minutes of wandering around the zoo in a suit of armour, talking to said friends. You know where this is going.

So there we are, talking about something, paying minimal attention to some kangaroos, when I feel something tugging on my elbow, look down, and there's this emu latched on to the fan of my elbow armor like mild steel and WD-40 is the best candy ever and I'm there trying to dislodge this thing, know in my heart that breaking someone's emu, no matter how psychotic, is going to be terrible publicity for everyone involved. Eventually I think the emu decided that, unlike a small child's fingers, my armor was not going to come off no matter how hard it pulled and so it went off looking for a small child.

There's never a kangaroo around when you need one.
posted by Kid Charlemagne at 11:24 PM on November 12, 2012 [2 favorites]

I'm reminded of this for some reason.
posted by ceribus peribus at 11:36 PM on November 12, 2012 [1 favorite]

I've haven't heard anyone mention "water moccasins" in decades. I am disappoint! Instead of some nice snakes, I get these giant, dangerous, deadly mammals and some Seasame Street rejects.
posted by Goofyy at 11:44 PM on November 12, 2012

winna: They have a bunch of ostriches at our farmer's market, and they are really terrifying. A giant bird, motionless as it inspects me with an air of 'ah, mammals, yes we used to stomp your kind into the mud when we ruled the earth.

Actually, I remember reading somewhere, two or three years ago, that ostriches find humans to be objects of, no kidding here, lust. I'm not sure how they determined this, but apparently when an ostrich is staring at you, it may be thinking how very, very hot you are.

This is not, to my knowledge, true of emus. I think they're just kind of assholes.
posted by Malor at 12:23 AM on November 13, 2012 [2 favorites]

How many times must it be repeated? Don't drink from fountains.

"An endless stream of snakes emus pour forth!"
posted by RonButNotStupid at 2:47 AM on November 13, 2012 [2 favorites]

Actually, I remember reading somewhere, two or three years ago, that ostriches find humans to be objects of, no kidding here, lust. I'm not sure how they determined this, but apparently when an ostrich is staring at you, it may be thinking how very, very hot you are.

This... this does not make it better.
posted by winna at 3:01 AM on November 13, 2012 [5 favorites]

sonascope: This made me laugh heartily, partly because it's funny as hell and partly because it reminds me of the time that my brother and his friend were tripping balls on LSD and wandered/trespassed onto a reasonably successful emu farm.

By definition, all emu farms are reasonably successful.
posted by emelenjr at 4:11 AM on November 13, 2012

I used to teach kindergarten in West Philly, and at some point, the class went on a field trip to Linvilla Farms, this orchard/petting-zoo/wholesome-family-destination that's right outside of the city. Among the animals they have at Linvilla are emus.

Most of these kids, they're five, six years old, and live in the city. The extent of their exposure to animals is pets, pigeons, and vague platonic-ideal-notions-of-animals that they read about in storybooks. Like, "The DUCK is YELLOW; find the YELLOW DUCK" and a drawing of a duck. You know, your standard kindergarten texts.

So we get to the farm, and the kids see the ducks, and they FLIP OUT.

"DUUUUUCKS! HA HA HA, DUUUUCKS!!!!!!" Maybe it was just one kid who flipped out initially, and all the other kids quickly got on the flip-out train, as five-year-olds will do ("ah, dang, that guy's yellin' about ducks, ducks must be fuckin' decent, I'm gonna yell about ducks"), but whatever the case, all the kids are just fucking OVERJOYED to see the ducks.

Of course, I've seen ducks before, ducks ain't no great shakes to worldly twentysomething me. Ducks ain't no thing to their jaded old schoolteacher. What I DON'T see every day are emus! And next to the ducks? An emu! What a big emu!

"Look! This is an EMU!" I happily exclaim to the kids who are crowding around the ducks like paparazzi around a red carpet.

The kids pull their attention away from their beloved ducks for a moment, to see me standing next to a bird that's like thrice the size of your average kindergartener. The kids stare at me blankly, and the emu stares at the kids blankly.

"Look how BIG this BIRD is!" I chirp.

The kids stare with this "What are we supposed to be interested in?" look.

"Guys, this bird is as BIG as ME!!!" I say, trying to convey the wonder of this rarity -- a human-sized avian. "Ha ha, WOW, this is one ENORMOUS BIRD!"

But presumably because they've never had exposure to the idea of "emu", while they've had plenty of storybook exposure to the idea of "duck", the kids are just COMPLETELY uninterested. After a moment of humoring me, they turn back to the ducks. "DUUUUUCKS!!!" they shriek. They laugh, and point, and exude the kind of goodhumored camaraderie characteristic of footballers in a pub after their team's victory. The ducks waddle around wearing duck-like expressions on their duck faces, and the kids, oh the kids have a chortle. Ducks! Ducks.

I turn back to the emu. "It's okay, emu, I still think you're something special."

And the emu stares at me blankly again, then turns and walks away.
posted by Greg Nog at 5:09 AM on November 13, 2012 [19 favorites]

I don't know how you can look at an emu and not think "living dinosaur".

It's super disappointing that Australia was discovered* before dinosaurs were, because if it was the other way around it totally would have been named Dino Island

*by white people
posted by theodolite at 5:44 AM on November 13, 2012

I'm embarrassed to say I actually said outloud "Roll the windows up! Roll the windows up!!" which probably says more about how old I am and where I come from than anything else.

Fark those emus. They're like the deer in Nara.
posted by Ms. Moonlight at 7:48 AM on November 13, 2012 [2 favorites]

So after reading this thread, and hearing other stories about them, I have to conclude that there is enough evidence that emus are big jerks that those who are in charge of petting zoos are including them on purpose to fuck with people.
posted by louche mustachio at 8:29 AM on November 13, 2012

I agree that if she were really that upset, she'd have rolled up the windows.
posted by maryr at 8:39 AM on November 13, 2012

MetaFilter: ah, dang, that guy's yellin' about ducks, ducks must be fuckin' decent, I'm gonna yell about ducks.
posted by Turkey Glue at 8:42 AM on November 13, 2012 [2 favorites]

I was delighted that the emu video consistently ends (for me) with a featured link to a 1976 video of Jim Savile, an emu puppet, and three children, which fits in neatly with the theme.

Jim Savile, kids, and a puppet built for harassment. Sweeeet.
posted by sonascope at 9:10 AM on November 13, 2012 [1 favorite]

oh my god i have just remembered the ghastly tinsel emu half of the rod hull & emu duo
posted by elizardbits at 11:57 AM on November 13, 2012

So what in god's name is this place?

Just imagine what it'd be like with lions wandering freely around...
posted by Huck500 at 3:42 PM on November 13, 2012

That's why you only have one eye, ASSHOLE! is my new mutter-under-my-breath phrase at work.


Metafilter: "you're ugly and I don't exactly trust you, so, here".

This may work also.
posted by BlueHorse at 3:56 PM on November 13, 2012

Guys, she can't roll up the window because there's an emu in the way. (They're so emu-y...)
posted by Rora at 8:14 PM on November 13, 2012