The Week's Best Viral Videos & Marketing Lessons - Fireworks & Bloopers

This was an especially difficult week to group the videos together according to a common theme. While there were plenty of viral video success stories this week, it was about as diverse a bunch as I've ever seen. We have accident videos, we have animal videos, we have movie trailers and space shuttles. They may not correlate to one another as well as usual, but they're no less entertaining.

Have a look for yourself at the week's best viral videos:

Fireworks

The 4th of July has come and gone, and most everyone has probably shot off the last of their fireworks. But the fireworks videos? Those are just now starting to trickle out. And some of them are generating lots of viral action.

Like this idiot, who decided to acquire and set off some "bootleg" fireworks. The video is every bit as entertaining for how he reacts as it is for any other reason (some mild language):

Then we have this fireworks fail video, which compiles (as you might guess) some of the very best in online video fireworks accidents and bloopers. (According to the description, no one was killed in any of these videos, though you'll wonder about a couple of them). And yes, the last video I just shared is included in the compilation video below:

Forget watching a fireworks show... Have you ever wanted to know what the fireworks themselves see? This guy did, so he strapped a camera to some:

While we're talking about fireworks and things that go boom... it feels appropriate to drop in this Space Shuttle mash-up video, which is a tribute to 30 years of Space Shuttle launches:

Oops

Of course, I could easily have included a couple of those fireworks videos in the "oops" category, but there's actually still plenty of (accidentally) great video left even without that. Like this poor kid who gets a bit flustered on Jeopardy and somehow ends up in spelling-bee mode:

Sometimes a great blooper video isn't an accident involving human error. Sometimes the machines mess up too:

Sometimes the "oops" isn't even real... it's staged. But even that can be just as entertaining. Like this would-be groom's four-story tumble off the roof while trying to catch the engagement ring:

Best Of The Week From YouTube Stars

Freddie Wong, who is my hero, has combined his love of action-movie sequences with something the entire Internet adores: cats! The result? Medal of Honor Cat, and it's fantastic:

Popular channel, Shaycarl, took a page right out of Freddie's book this week, with a playful take on army men:

And finally, Matt Mullholland returns with another acapella masterpiece. This is easily my new favorite YouTube channel. Hot of the success of recreating all the music and sound effects from a famous Matrix scene, this week Matt went viral with a similar treatment of a Star Wars scene. Check it out:

Grab Bag

These are the videos I couldn't even pretend to fit into a tidy category above, so they come here... to the grab bag.

We have the little kid who stole the show at a baseball game by performing an intricate dance routine on the Jumbotron to Michael Jackson's Thriller:

This camera-themed Rube Goldberg machine might be the most impressive I've ever seen--yes, maybe even better than OK Go's:

This documentary on the sound editing team behind Transformers 3: Dark of the Moon is fantastic. It's 9 minutes long, but totally worth it. Just ask the 300,000 people who've seen it so far:

Is this the world's first "animated" tattoo? Even if it's fake, it's a pretty outstanding video:

Honorable Mention

A few more great videos for those of you still looking to prolong the last work day of the week:

• A Harry Potter-themed spoof of Rebecca Black's Friday? Sure, why not?
• This kid is a master of the string-less yo-yo.
• I found this video on how 3D printers work to actually be quite riveting.
• Is this dog on helium, or is this a fake? Does it really matter?
• This movie-related bank-robbery supercut is pretty fun.