Submission 2,895

About

Happy Birthday Annabelle is a popular video filmed May 25th of 1997 of a raccoon named Annabelle celebrating her third birthday. Every year on May 25th, people either post the video and/or comment on uploads of this video on YouTube in celebration of the raccoon's birthday. The video involves a man and a woman singing happy birthday to the raccoon Annabelle dressed in a blue shirt and a birthday hat while she eats cake at a table. After the man and the woman are finished singing, they continue to film Annabelle while a high-pitched ringing sound plays in the background.

Origin

The video was first posted on April 1st of 2016 on the Memory Hole Youtube channel titled "Happy Birthday Lil Friend". According to a Vice interview, this channel posts clips of unused videos from the show, America's Funniest Home Videos.^[1] The original upload contained other short clips of men singing happy birthday, but these did not become popular like how Annabelle's clip did. The original video only reached a little more than 70 thousand views.

Spread

Another video titled "Raccoon Birthday Party" was posted on August 16th of that same year by Youtube user Cokepencil. psd. As of 2022, this upload has received around 215 thousand views.^[2] People in the comment section of this video either congratulate Annabelle on her birthday or reminisce about how they come to see the video every year. Since 2016, many people across various media platforms have taken to posting the clip every year on May 25th in celebration of Annabelle's birthday.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by • (@spooky.miller)

Rumors & Controversy

No one has ever come forward claiming to have filmed or to have taken-part-in the video, a disappointment to those seeking a backstory. One of the most popular rumors about this video is that Annabelle was killed shortly after it's making.^[3]^[4] Thankfully, no evidence other than word-of-mouth has been discovered to support this. Whatever the case, the average life span of a raccoon is between 2 to 3 years^[5], meaning that Annabelle is undoubtably no longer with us.