You just can’t go wrong with a video featuring animals or kids.  If you can squeeze both into one video, you’ve got yourself a sure winner.  One of the few programs that our whole family can sit down and enjoy together is America’s Funniest Home Videos, mostly for the pet montages.

Youtube has a great variety of animal videos.  Any animal, any scenario –  you can find a video online.  If you’re into videos of cats flushing toilets, you can find them by the bucket load (along with a catchy song about… cats flushing toilets).  I was shocked to see just how often people manage to capture video of their cats flushing a toilet.  As to how and why one individual collected so many “cat flushing toilet” videos and what possessed said individual to record a “cat flushing toilet” song, I don’t know.  But if you’ve ever heard it, I guarantee you’ll be humming it the rest of the day.

A word of caution about Youtube, though.  If you’re searching for kid-friendly animal videos, be careful.  Youtube makes it easy for ANYONE to post just about ANYTHING.  There are some sick individuals out there who take advantage of Youtube’s openness by placing videos that start off cute and cuddly and then cross over to… unpleasant.

Sites like National Geographic for Kids, Pet Place, and iVillage all have repositories for animal videos that are cute, funny, and family-friendly.  Some even group them by animal type, so you can watch frolicking puppies to your heart’s delight without being interrupted by a cat flushing the toilet, if you like.  There are lots of other locations, too.  Now that everyone has access to a video camera and the Internet, cute pet videos are easy to find and enjoy.

As long as our pets continue to be idiosyncratic, clever, and adorable little creatures, there will be plenty to watch.