Marcel The Shell Returns With First New Video In Three Years, Movie On The Way

Marcel the Shell is back.

The pint-sized anthropomorphic shell and YouTube sensation is back with his first video in nearly three years. Created and voiced by Saturday Night Live alum Jenny Slate, the little shell became a giant hit online, garnering more than 20 million views.

The third video in the Marcel series, titled “The Most Surprised I’ve Ever Been,” was uploaded to YouTube on Monday and quickly built toward 100,000 views.

The new video continues what has been a very popular series. The first video, Marcel the Shell with Shoes On, was released in 2010 and almost immediately went viral. As Slate told USA Today at the time, the Marcel character was created by accident one weekend:

Well, I was doing Marcel’s voice over the weekend at a friend’s wedding. I was sharing a hotel room with my boyfriend and three other people — we were all just packed in there because everyone was trying to save money, and I felt really teeny tiny. And I just started doing that voice, which I’m sure was pretty annoying for my pals.

(At), like, four in the morning I was still doing it, and Dean (Fleischer-Camp), who directed, edited and animated it, started to say, “You should write down the things that you’re saying.” So then we came up with the idea of, “What if there was a little guy and he was just talking about his life?”

Slate went on to say she was surprised at how popular it became, especially for a “bare-bones thing.”

“I think we were just doing it for fun. We thought maybe 30 people would see it after the show and we’d put it online for our friends to see,” she said. “But I’m really so happy that people love Marcel, because I love him, too. And he’s a little piece of me, so it makes me feel good.”

But Jenny Slate has even bigger plans for Marcel the Shell. She has been working on a full-length movie, which will include at least one of the character’s signature songs (one of which is “My Mother Got Lost In A Rug”).