Halloween season is almost here, so it's time to celebrate all of the vermin in the animal kingdom. Sure, black cats, bats, and spiders typically get the publicity for this upcoming month, but many different animals deserve a chance to shine as Halloween Monster Animal of the Year TM . For instance, raccoons . If Universal Studios had not featured black cats as horror icons and instead made raccoons a monster animal in their B movie horror flicks of the 1930s, I guarantee raccoons would be the…

Filling up the meme bowl

Every animal in the world will do two things: live and die. Disney's The Lion King (1994) illustrates this concept perfectly. One second, a monkey is introducing a baby lion into the world. Thirty minutes later, you're sobbing watching that baby lions father being trampled to death. That movie wasn't lying when it talked about the circle of life moving us all. If you love animals, you probably hate animals dying. I remember when the seminal film Marley and Me hit theatres, and animal lovers eve…

In my humble opinion, the greatest song ever written is Gilda Radner's “ Let's Talk Dirty To The Animals .” In that tune, the original SNL cast member revealed some timeless truths about the animal kingdom. That song isn't really about being dirty or nasty or filthy. It's about camaraderie. Non-human animals don't want to be talked down to or patronized. Animals are people to, and they deserve to be talked to dirty just as much as anybody else. If you've never heard Gilda Radner tell an alligat…

Frogs are not only one of the greatest animals in the entire animal kingdom, they're also the stars of some of the most legendary memes of the 2010s. One cannot communicate with words the legendary status Pepe the frog held in 2015. There were art kids at my high school who made a giant recreation of Pepe out of tape and carried him around throughout their day. There were full-tilt custody battles over the physical manifestation of a meme in his prime. What a legend. Around the same time period…

More kitties

Dr. Dolittle is one lucky dog. That man can talk to the animals, and nobody bats an eye. He has been portrayed by Rex Harrison, Eddie Murphy, and Robert Downy Jr. Clearly, when they were casting these movies, they said, “Non-legends need not apply.” Only the most advanced actors

. Whoever said dogs were “Man's Best Friend” forgot to include penguins, raccoons , salmon, and all animals in the animal kingdom. Animals are the light of our lives. They deserve parades and non-toxic cakes celebrating their existence. Disney's Animal Kingdom is just that; a theme park devoted to celebrating animals 365 days a year. They say it's not a zoo, but it's totally a zoo. Animal Kingdom is 33% depictions of wildlife in Asia and Africa, 33% Pandora the World of Avatar, and 33% DInoland…

As the world's most famous frog once said, “it's not easy being green.”

At some point, I'm sure we all wished we were born into the legendary Irwin Dynasty. Imagine being the heiress to the Australia Zoo throne, spending your days wearing fantastic two-piece khaki outfits with your awesome family. I, for one, want nothing more than to star in my wildlife documentary programming and continue on the legacy of Steve Irwin , aka The Crocodile Hunter. Unfortunately, unless your name is Bindi or Robert, that is not the life you lead. Even if you weren't born into an icon…

Look at those little faces

It can be more than a little unsettling to pass an unassuming mountain of trash and hear something rustling around in the shadows of the garbage pile, but depending on where you live, it's probably just a cute little trash panda hunting for its next meal. There's no reason to be scared of these critters unless they are frothing at the mouth in a rabid rage. In fact, humans share more qualities with those tiny creatures than most people actually realize. Are there dark shadows under your tired-l…

It’s very easy to have a knowledge of Animal Kingdom on a very superficial level. You go to your local zoo, you see the zebras, and you think you know something. If you’re a regular viewer of Animal Planet or the Discovery Channel, you might feel a little bit superior to the rubes who called themselves the next Steve Irwin. Unfortunately, neither of these groups truly compare to the real hobbyists. Do you know the kinds of people we can look at a prehistoric fish thing and tell you it’s genus,…

Usually, when gender reveals go viral, it's never for something good. How many videos have you seen of a gender reveal party starting a fire or the dad storming off when he finds out the baby is a girl? A genuinely intriguing and compelling gender reveal is hard to come by these days, making this parrot's gender reveal such a revelation. This beautiful bird has been a part of his family for over four decades, and they always just assumed he was a boy. When their vet suggested he might be a girl…

Congratulations, time traveler. Somehow, through will, strength, or perhaps resignation, you have made it to the end of Monday . How does it feel? If it doesn't feel like something that should be congratulated, then you're right with us. We didn't consent to being born, and we certainly didn't consent to an existence that makes us feel like we've accomplished some grand task. Life shouldn't feel like an endless cycle of suffering with tiny breaks in between, and if we are this exhausted and dej…

I don't know about you, but I'm old enough to remember a place and time before the world wide web. A time when you had to find humor in joke books, terrible TV sitcoms, inside jokes with old pals, and good old fashioned farts . When I was a child, my friends and I would invent strange and completely nonsensical words and repeat them over and over again until they became hilarious. There's no denying it: we've come a long way since then. Thanks to memes , millions of strangers can be in on the s…