The Web’s Best Video Clips: Videos With A Brain

People with kids love to find out what “little tricks” work for theirs to calm their crying. Some advocate singing…some long car rides. Here’s another cute idea.

Something about this is crazy funny. The guy doesn’t look like he belongs at all, but once he gets going, he shows that he’s got some fingering chops. “Dis is Rock and Roll.”

A boy named Alex Olinkiewicz takes the time to explain, from his perspective, what it’s like to have Asperger’s Syndrome. Very interesting stuff…especially if you know someone (as I do) who is thusly affected.

In NYC, Derren attempts to buy things using his own money…blank pieces of paper. Unlike many of his videos which are very intense, this is a bit on the lighter side.

From the “Trick of the Mind” TV series in the UK. As usual…his work is just flat amazing.

An impressive performance by 5 kids in downtown Chicago. The video is a bit soft, but you can see some of the amazing acrobatics they had goin’ on that day.

Not sure what the purpose of this was…but two extremely-gifted ping-pong players decided to have a little fun at what appeared to be a real match.

Creative and really fun. It’s fun to see art as simple self-expression…rather than being pretentious. More info about the artist at rinpaeshidan.jp.

Very cool 3-D effect.

This 2-year-old boy is bustin’ a move big-time. Very athletic and creative. You can tell how much he loves it.

“Daddy’s gonna make you laugh now…ready??” Just a big pile o’ babies having a good ol’ belly laugh. “Daddy’s just a reg’lar standup comedian, isn’t he…?”

Followup to the hugely popular first video. This has much more action. The editing is a bit rough, but features all the sugar and twice the caffeine.

From Steve Harvey’s Big Time. He ties up the lovely blonde magician (with great relish, of course) and she pulls off a pretty slick trick. A long watch that moves a little slow, but it’s well-done and pretty funny. More about her at ArianBlack.com.

Sorry for the poor video quality, but this is pretty remarkable stuff if you can make it out. Cyril entertains an audience on the street and in a market. Very well done.

At the Virtual Magician Science show, theoretical physicist Michio Kaku demonstrates his “perpetual motion machine”…i.e., work being performed(movement) with no energy loss.

Derren showcases a subject-to-subject transferrence of numbers, and causes a portion of the audience to forget what they’ve seen during the show.

Engineers at Cornell University in upstate New York have designed this odd-looking machine, which can rebuild itself and perform repairs on itself. I especially like the part where they appear and disappear as needed. Very cool…this power of invisibility. What…?? Oh…never mind.

Ring a bell, the dogs salivate. Make a silly noise, the baby laughs uncontrollably.

Two Massachusetts buddies, Paul Cummings & Tony Fiandaca, invested two months of their lives to film and edit this mock battle, replete with super-power effects and a lot of creative energy. It’s a stop-motion extravaganza. More about them at MySpace.com/freeposterfilms.

A sweet story of a relationship between a man and his best friend. There’s more to the story, of course…but that’s the best part. Heartwarming and worth the time to watch. You’ll want to share this with friends.

An undertaker sorts through a stack of photos of people, and sorts them intuitively. To say more would ruin the effect. Just watch it.

Derren demonstrates a technique of persuasion where he simply asks for what he wants…and get it. Including wallet, house keys, etc. And then does it again…to the same guy! Quite amazing.

Derren uses NLP (neuro-linguistic programming) to convince a man that he wants one gift when he had previously chosen another. And then, he takes us back through his patter and shows how it was done. Sometimes referred to as “covert hypnosis”, this technique shows in the same way as more standard hypnosis, just how malleable [...]

This guy really plans out his stuff. It’s quite fascinating to watch. In this segment, he takes two advertising professionals and exposes them to subtle manipulation through (ironically) subliminal advertising.

Brian and the Orchestra offer up their rendition of the 1937 Duke Ellington classic. If you’re not yet aware of Brian’s guitar skills, this 3 minutes will remedy that situation.