The year’s most unexpected holiday gift is a new Charlie the Unicorn short

Improbably, one of the great viral hits of the 2000s has returned this holiday season: Charlie the Unicorn.

Created by Jason Steele of FilmCow, the original “Charlie the Unicorn” Flash animation short was released on Newgrounds in 2005 and slammed in to the cultural vernacular of terminally online millennials. Steele’s Charlie shorts had a tight formula featuring a pink and blue pair of tooth-erodingly saccharine unicorns who would relentlessly bother the skeptical and foul-mouthed Charlie into traveling with them on ceaselessly capricious adventures stocked with classic mid-aughts random humor. At the climax of each short, Charlie would, despite himself, give in to their relentless cheerfulness and start to enjoy himself — at which point they would conk him on the head and traffic one of his organs.

When you write it all out like that it really does make you think: You know what? Skibidi Toilet is fine.

Steele followed up with some sequels, parodies, and spinoffs throughout the ’00s and early teens, eventually culminating in a Charlie “finale” in 2021. But lo, on the second day of Christmas my YouTube algorithm gave to me “Charlie the Unicorn Enjoys a Moment of Peace.” And, spoilers, but, the title is accurate.

In the new vid, nothing bad happens to Charlie at all, and he is allowed to engage earnestly with a moment of true whimsy without any negative consequences.

I’m happy for him. I wish that for you as well, reader, and for all of us, in this holiday season and the new year to come.