A worldwide phenomenon in the most proper of ways, the Planet Earth documentary series has given viewers some of the most beautiful views that the Earth can provide, as well as some of the most unpredictable situations involving all forms of life. But what the acclaimed series doesn't do is show us a world in which animals are capable of screaming and hollering like human beings, and that's where the hilarious and unsettling Planet Earth II video below comes in. Check it out below, with the volume not all the way up.
Admittedly, seeing all of these howlers smashed up together is a little too silly to be truly disturbing, but if you separate the individual scenes and have someone surprise you with them one at a time over the course of an entire day...well, that's when the "questionable behavior" starts. That's when your boss starts asking why you keep looking outside the window every few minutes while pushing cotton ball after cotton ball into your ear canals, and when your lover doesn't understand why you've been obsessing over the myriad sizes and shapes for your various muzzle schematics.
Okay, so it's not actually that bad, and this just may be a case of my own personal disconnect with real human voices coming out of real animals. I'm okay with watching people in giant costumes saying "Cowabunga" and "What's up, doc?" as well as animated dogs solving mysteries, but there's some kind of uncanny valley effect happening when things get all Dr. Doolittle like this. If I'm already not fond of bats flying at my head, an easy way to make that experience a million times more jarring is for that bat to sound like somebody who's riding a roller coaster. Why don't any of them sound like David Attenborough?
Not all of this fan-made Planet Earth II mash-up makes me think our four-legged and/or web-toed friends will bring rise to an apocalypse, though. I quite like the thought of a giant feline pouncing on a big pile of snow and screaming into it in presumed frustration. And the timing couldn't be better on that one little bugger with the lovely green neck-frills. But all of those birds..,those birds...
Since Planet Earth II first premiered on the other side of the pond, lots of crazy stories and videos have come out about situations where the animals certainly had the motivations to scream out like people. From hyena brawls to skull-crushing leopards to antelope-killing outbreaks, the world we live on offers no end to how radical and fluid nature always is. And there's also no end to how far human beings can manipulate that footage of said planet.
Here in the U.S., we are still patiently waiting for Planet Earth II to arrive on our TVs, and its premiere will finally air on BBC America on Saturday, January 28, 2017. To see when everything else will make an appearance on the small screen in the near future, head to our midseason premiere schedule.
