Our Favourite Charlie McDonnell Moments (Part 2)

Ready for round two?

On 30 March, we shared the first of our 20 favourite Charlie McDonnell moments to honour his retirement from YouTube. For years, Charlie entertained us with his videos, which ranged from science experiments and hilarious sit down vlogs, to his iconic Challenge Charlie series. While we’re sad to see him go, we are appreciative of everything he did not just for YouTube, but for his viewers. He’s been a true treasure to the site.

Get ready, here are the last of our 20 favourite Charlie McDonnell moments!

10. Badgers are cool!

During Charlie’s time on YouTube, he certainly didn’t hide the fact he’s a massive Doctor Who fan. From eating fish custard (yuck!) to being in a band that’s released two albums about the series, there are few people who deserved the role of presenting the Doctor Who’s sidekick web show, Doctor Who Confidential!

We felt so happy for him as he gleefully ogled the interior of the TARDIS, jammed out with Arthur Darvill and gave a very excited Karen Gillan seven slabs of organic chocolate, but our favourite moment was when Charlie gifted the 11th Doctor, Matt Smith, a badger hand puppet. (Because badgers are cool!)

9. The fiirst UK YouTuber to reach one million subscribers

We love reliving the very moment Charlie became the first UK YouTuber to reach one million subscribers and promptly found out his life had been a lie and that he’s an experiment in a computer simulation, with the objective to reach a million subscribers. Bit weird, but as milestone video plot twists go, we honestly can’t think of a bigger one.

8. Charlie takes off his pants!

2010 was a very different time for VidCon. Rather than having huge musical numbers and performances from the celebrity figures of today, the headline act in 2010 was Charlie taking off his pants, only to reveal another pair of pants! One year later, he did it again, this time revealing a rather snazzy pair of boxers. (And a little more too.) We honestly can’t pick between these two moments, so we’re going to leave them both in.

8. That time Charlie forgot to turn on the microphone

In 2011, Charlie was given the opportunity to make a video for Comic Relief with any celebrity he wanted. After much pondering, he tentatively asked if he could sing a duet with his favourite musical comedian, Tim Minchin, and, much to his astonishment, he could!

On the day of the shoot, Tim was incredible and rehearsed the song with Charlie for four entire hours, despite only being able to stay for one and a half, and all was dandy. However, there was one small thing that Charlie forgot to do: turn on the microphone. After all that effort and planning, the end result was a music video without any music.

That isn’t the end of the story, however. A few years later, Tim was able to dish out some revenge on Charlie by smothering him with honey and feathers for the last Challenge Charlie!

5. Charlie in a bathrobe

Yup, here’s Charlie lying on a table, in a bathrobe – who wouldn’t click on that? That’s why it was the perfect clickbait thumbnail for a video by his friend, Michael Aranda, who was investigating the question, what does it mean to be British? (To us, the most British thing is a charlieissocoollike dressed as a tea bag!)

5. The Tea Chronicles

Name one thing that is more British than charlieissocoolike dressed as a teabag. Come on, we’re waiting. This wondrous (yet also disturbing) sight came from Charlie’s debut short film, The Tea Chronicles, in a scene where evil dream Charlie swallows terrified tea Charlie whole! This all sounds quite scary and weird, but trust us, this physiological horror is one of the best short film debuts we’ve ever seen and definitely deserves a place on this list!

4. A helping hand from big YouTubers

Doesn’t everyone love seeing big YouTubers helping out smaller creators? 2013 was a particularly fantastic time for the community, as evidenced by the YouTube Geek Week special, I Can’t Even! Hosted by Chris Kendall, this quiz show featured big names, like Phil Lester, Daniel Howell, Jack Howard, Tom Ridgewell, Stuart Ashen, and up and coming YouTuber Charlie McDonnell! Isn’t it great seeing our faves helping little unknown Charlie out?

Jokes aside, it was an amazing production and it was great seeing them goofing around in the same video!

3. Charlie eating cereal for 10 minutes

A fan once wrote to Charlie, “You could literally make a video of you eating cereal for ten minutes not saying anything and I would still watch all of it and enjoy it.” So Charlie did, and we massively enjoyed watching all 10 minutes and 19 seconds! Maybe he enjoyed making this video so much that it possibly inspired the morning show he would later host with Jimmy Hill called Cereal Time. (Or is the name a coincidence?)

**2. Charlie and dodie singing A Song About Acne Together**

As we previously mentioned, Charlie almost single-handedly triggered the ukulele renaissance with hits like 2009’s A Song About Acne. While we’re not sure Charlie’s music inspired dodie to start writing her own music, we can safely assume she was a massive fan of his from her A Song About Charlieissocoollike. The line, “Charlieissocoollike, one day you’ll be my friend and we’ll sing a duet,” is particularly telling.

So when they eventually came together in 2015 to sing one of Charlie’s old songs, we couldn’t help but let out a squeal of glee, for it was like witnessing the completion of a prophecy! We see this duet as a symbolic passing of the YouTube musician baton, from one generation to the next.

1. We’ve had the almost imponderable joy of watching charlieissocoollike, which makes us like cool!

We can’t help but feel a tinge of nostalgic sadness hearing those words read out by Stephen Fry in this iconic outro. It also fits how we feel about the end of Charlie’s YouTube career. We’re so grateful for his contributions to the YouTube landscape, for him being the first YouTuber many of us watched, for inspiring the next generations of YouTubers and, above all, for creating so many memories we’ll treasure forever. We’re sad that it’s over, but happy that it happened!

So there you have it…

Those were our 20 favourite Charlie McDonnell moments! Looking back at these moments honestly makes us nostalgic, and despite the exhaustive list, we had to cut out so many! If we’ve missed any of your personal favourite moments, be sure to let us know by sending a tweet to @TenEightyUK!

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