Planet Earth Iguana

Submission 12,371

Part of a series on Planet Earth. [View Related Entries]

About

The Planet Earth Iguana is a baby marine iguana shown fleeing a swarm of snakes in the BBC nature documentary series Planet Earth II.

Origin

On November 6th, 2016, BBC aired the first episode of the nature documentary series Planet Earth II, featuring a scene in which a baby marine iguana is chased down by a group of snakes along the rocky coast of Galapagos island. BBC's upload of the scene to YouTube gained more than 7.06 million views and 4,900 comments over the next month (shown below).

Spread

On November 7th, Redditor soldierofcinema submitted a clip of the scene to /r/television,^[2] speculating it "could be the greatest TV moment ever." Over the next month, the post gained over 99,900 votes (87% upvoted) and 4,800 comments. That day, Redditor Shitty Watercolor posted an illustration of the iguana next to a man covered in snakes to /r/funny,^[1] where it gathered upwards of 34,700 votes (83% upvoted) in the first month (shown below).

Meanwhile, Twitter user @Brian Grubb tweeted a clip of the chase scene dubbed with the NFL Primetime theme song (shown below).

Set the Planet Earth iguana chase to the NFL Primetime music. Feel great about it. pic.twitter.com/Bug0Ej8bu2
— Brian Grubb (@briancgrubb) November 7, 2016

Also on November 7th, YouTuber ZarosTemplar uploaded the scene dubbed with the overture to the opera William Tell (shown below, left). On November 8th, YouTuber Ozzy Man Reviews reuploaded the scene with his commentary (shown below, right).

On December 5th, Redditor thecoachtaylor uploaded a remix of the scene dubbed with a monologue by the Seattle Seahawks running back Marshawn Lynch (a.k.a. "Beast Mode") to /r/sports^[4] (shown below). The following day, the Yahoo Sports Facebook^[3] page reposted the remix.