This was an iconic series for those of us in the gay bear world

Sam Morrison picks his comedy favourites

Sam Morrison – who previously found success with his show Sugar Daddy – is back at the Edinburgh Fringe with Duck, described as ‘a science-obsessed attack on the human ego’. Here he picks his Perfect Playlist of comedy favourites.

Pronunciation Manual

This is hands-down the most formative video of my childhood. There was a period of my life where whenever I met a new person I’d show them this video. That period is now.

It’s perfect comedy. It’s also extremely quotable. I cannot be at a party without saying Ah look at these beautiful harsssdoooossdese.

My friends and I loved this series so much we snuck into the sound studio at our college and recorded our own versions. They’re somewhere deep on YouTube that we can’t find. If you do, I’ll give you free tickets to my show.

Planet Earth II: Islands

Another absolute banger. I watched it for the first time on a flight many years ago and then this specific scene haunted me for years. And then I looked it up on YouTube to find 20million others did the same. It’s truly haunting, fascinating, and a reminder of how good we have it as humans.

Yes my Uber cancelled on me last night twice and made me miss a hookup with a hot daddy bear (gay human) but at least we’re not born into a snake pit having to stay perfectly still or die. It’s also, technically, just perfect storytelling. From the first two shots you know what is going to happen, and yet you’re locked in.

Bo Burnham

It’s now so common (and mostly bad) to have these parasocial relationships with artists but I never knew that’s what was going on at the time.

Bo Burnham was the first artist I grew up with. He’s a few years older and, look, if an artist put out this song now I’d roll my eyes so hard and call them kinda homophobic but at the time, this was one of the closest things out there to gay representation.

I do think as much as I love his art, I just feel like a weird really intimate connection to him. It’s hard to articulate but it definitely comes up as a strong sense of nostalgia watching this video. I’ve seen everything he’s put out since.

Bear City

Do I need to say more? I mean this is an iconic series for those of us in the gay bear world. And yeah I loved it because Tim Hooper can have my babies, but genuinely it was so affirming to see somebody else with my sexuality, and the relationships I aspired to have.

I think I found it when I was 16 and it was my first introduction to the fact there even was a gay bear world or a bear week. Immediately I was like ‘ooohhhhh I’m not a weird little broken perverted boy, I just need to go wherever these folks are’.

True Facts About The Duck

The vid that started it all. Once I found out the Argentinian Lade Duck have 42.5 cm corkscrew penis, I became obsessed with weird nature facts about sex and gender.

At the time, I think a lot of that was down to me being a closeted boy searching for some sort of scientific proof that I’m a good boy, which is exactly how I have sex, but I’m sure that’s not related. My new show Duck starts from these weird animal facts and asks the question what is natural even?