There Is A New ‘Marcel The Shell With Shoes On’

Everybody’s favourite tiny shell with shoes is back, and as ridiculously adorable/occasionally philosophical/endearingly weak-voiced as ever.

‘Marcel The Shell With Shoes On’ — a joint effort between actor/comedian Jenny Slate, some place deep in the back of her throat, and Jenny Slate’s husband, director Dean Fleischer-Camp — was a viral hit when the first video was released in 2010. The three-and-a-half minute stop-motion film, revolving around a character developed one day by accident, clocked up over 23.5 million hits on Youtube, resulting in a best-selling coffee table book and a second short-film in 2011.

And now, in the aftermath of Slate’s debut film release — the sweet, sad and  wonderful Obvious Child, that’s about loads more than just abortion — comes the third in the series, released in conjunction with a second hardcover book: The Most Surprised I’ve Ever Been.

Marcel has been locked outside, in a storm.

Maybe we are all locked outside in a storm.

Part of the videos’ charm lies in the way they are constructed: Fleischer-Camp fires questions at Slate, who adopts the persona to answer them, completely off the cuff. “We started doing it in our house as something just to do together, during a time when I was just starting in the entertainment industry,” she told Slate’s Culture Gabfest earlier this month. “I was overwhelmed, was about to get fired from a job, and really just needed to get back to the mindset that was — and is, especially with the internet but in general in the world — that nobody can stop you from being creative.”

Here’s the first from Marcel The Shell:

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And here’s the second: