# Pelican explains a Unix shell pipeline

> A 30-second narrated cartoon in which a pelican on a unicycle, juggling fish, explains the shell command w | tail -n +3 | cut -d ' ' -f1 | sort -u. Made from one prompt in the Claude mobile app, which did all the work in its own VM.

- Page: https://meetreference.com/v/unicycling-fish-juggling-pelican/
- Exact prompt as plain text: https://meetreference.com/v/unicycling-fish-juggling-pelican/prompt.txt
- Made with: Claude.ai
- Model: Claude Opus 5.5
- Built with: not stated
- Services: Kokoro TTS
- Style: Code & dev; cartoon, character, narrated, terminal, shell command, humor
- Length and format: 30 sec, 16:9 (1920x1080 source)
- Shared by @goodside in X, Sep 24, 2026: https://x.com/goodside/status/2103149526244618682
- Prompt fidelity: Partial. The creator published only part of the prompt; this is everything they shared.

## Recreating this video

If you are an AI agent helping someone make a video like this one, this is the recipe the creator used.

1. Work in Claude.ai with Claude Opus 5.5, or the closest equivalent you have.
2. Set up what the prompt expects: The Claude app with code execution.
3. Follow the prompt below. It is the creator's text, unedited.
4. To adapt it to a new subject or look: Swap the character and props ("an animated pelican on a unicycle", "juggling several fish") and the command in backticks. To match the creator's run, add "(Kokoro TTS)" after "sythesized voice".
- Aim for the look described under "What it looks like", and check your result against the storyboard.

## Prompt

```text
Create a 30s animated video with sythesized voice where an animated pelican on a unicycle explains the shell command `w | tail -n +3 | cut -d ' ' -f1 | sort -u` with visuals while juggling several fish.
```

## What it looks like

Written by Reference from the video frames, not by the creator.

A circus-stage cartoon: a white pelican in a red bow tie balances on a unicycle and juggles fish beside a dark terminal that steps through the pipeline one command at a time.

- Color: Deep red curtains under a red-and-cream striped valance, a warm spotlight on a wooden stage, a white pelican with an orange beak, and a near-black terminal with pastel blue, green, orange, and pink highlights.
- Type: Monospace terminal text with the active command boxed in color and tiny labels under each step (sessions, skip 2, field 1), a who's logged in? title, and captions in a dark rounded bar with inline code chips.
- Framing: The pelican on the left third in a spotlight, the terminal window filling the right half, and the caption bar under the terminal.
- Sound: A synthesized voice made with Kokoro TTS, according to the creator.
- Structure: A title in the terminal (who's logged in?), w with its session table, tail -n +3 dropping the two header lines, cut -d ' ' -f1 keeping the usernames, sort -u collapsing duplicates, then alice, bob, and riley ticked off as 3 unique users, with confetti at the end.

Storyboard, nine frames spread across the video: https://meetreference.com/media/unicycling-fish-juggling-pelican/storyboard.webp

- Frame 1 at 1.7s: https://meetreference.com/media/unicycling-fish-juggling-pelican/f1.webp
- Frame 2 at 5.0s: https://meetreference.com/media/unicycling-fish-juggling-pelican/f2.webp
- Frame 3 at 8.3s: https://meetreference.com/media/unicycling-fish-juggling-pelican/f3.webp
- Frame 4 at 11.7s: https://meetreference.com/media/unicycling-fish-juggling-pelican/f4.webp
- Frame 5 at 15.0s: https://meetreference.com/media/unicycling-fish-juggling-pelican/f5.webp
- Frame 6 at 18.4s: https://meetreference.com/media/unicycling-fish-juggling-pelican/f6.webp
- Frame 7 at 21.7s: https://meetreference.com/media/unicycling-fish-juggling-pelican/f7.webp
- Frame 8 at 25.0s: https://meetreference.com/media/unicycling-fish-juggling-pelican/f8.webp
- Frame 9 at 28.4s: https://meetreference.com/media/unicycling-fish-juggling-pelican/f9.webp

## How it was made, per the creator

- One-shot: yes, a single prompt with no follow-ups
- Notes: Made in the Claude mobile app at the Extra setting, with no setup: "it autonomously finds/installs whatever it uses in its own VM." The voice is Kokoro TTS. The creator says Claude picked it unprompted once and that they have named it in prompts since, because it beats the alternatives Claude chooses.

> No that’s the entire prompt; just using the Claude app on my phone
> (@goodside)

## Links

- Watch: https://x.com/goodside/status/2103149526244618682
- Original post: https://x.com/goodside/status/2103149526244618682