The cute and funny "Marcel the Shell with Shoes On" -- voiced by Jenny Slate and directed by Dean Fleischer-Camp -- was one of the hit web video characters of the past year and he's just returned in a new video that's drawing lots of attention.

The original Marcel the Shell hit YouTube last October and drew over 4 million views in 2010. But the video has had a long-tail audience and it's now been seen over 12 million times:



Like many "cult classic" type clips, the original video saw lots of parodies and fan videos. Someone even wrote a theme song for Marcel:



And now Marcel has returned, just over a year later, with a sequel that's currently the most-viewed and most-shared video in the United States. It's been seen over half a million times in the past 24 hours and has been one of YouTube's top rising searches: