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YouTube right now! The Oatmeal’s Pterodactyl

Behold The Oatmeal's outrageous and inaugural music-video animation. 

 

Chase Hoffberger

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Posted on Mar 28, 2012   Updated on Jun 2, 2021, 7:22 pm CDT

In YouTube Right Now, the Daily Dot looks at videos that catch our eyes, push our buttons, and move our dials—and that you’ve just got to watch. Right now!

It’s the catchiest pop song about diarrheic pterodactyls. It’s the only pop song about diarrheic pterodactyls. Of course, The Oatmeal is one of the people behind it.

In his first foray into music-video animation, popular Web cartoonist The Oatmeal (real name Matthew Inman) has teamed with New Jersey singer Sarah Donner to release “The Motherfucking Pterodactyl,” an upbeat, acoustic guitar shakedown about all the crazy exploits employed by this flying Triassic reptile.

Among those hobbies:

  • Eating 10,000 lightning bugs
  • Rollerblading
  • Wooing ladies with his sweet Pterodactylian charm
  • Lavishly smoking a pipe

The Oatmeal’s animations for the video are just as outrageous. Set up as a singalong with Donner’s lyrics scribed across the screen as she sings, The Oatmeal depicts the “motherfucking pterodactyl” dressed in drag, debating against Abraham Lincoln, and mocking a Tyrannosaurus rex for having “pussy arms on that pussy frame.”

Released on Monday afternoon, “The Motherfucking Pterodactyl” has racked up over 400,000 views on Youtube—200,000 of those coming in the video’s first 24 hours. It’s been massively popular, but reaction among commenters has been mixed.

“I think it’s going to take me a loooong time to decide it I liked that or not,” wrote vorpall22 in the comment section.

“Ok people get over yourselves and admit that this was amazing,” added mackaptep. “It fills that spot of humor in your brain that you didn’t know that you had…and you liked it.”

More than one viewer was quick to counter, however.

“I’m gonna be honest, this is fucking shit,” wrote fuckenps3. “I couldn’t even last the whole video, it’s just lame and bad, and not funny at all. Stick to the comics Oatmeal.”

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*First Published: Mar 28, 2012, 3:35 pm CDT