Happy Day

"HAPPY" OCCASION: An International Day of Happiness sounds like a great idea anytime. But the event, a collaboration between Columbia’s Pharrell Williams and the United Nations Foundation, is particularly welcome to the potential beneficiaries of the global fundraising effort for the UN’s Central Emergency Response Fund. (You can donate here.) Pharrell has used the event to showcase videos of people around the world performing, dancing, lip-synching and otherwise indulging in his mega-smash, “Happy.” The clips are promoted via #HappyDay and related hashtags, and social-network activity over the last two days or so has generated more than 211 million impressions. Following the overwhelming success of the first showing, tonight marks an encore showing of 200 or so videos from nearly every earthly time zone, starting at 8pmEST. Among the vids are fan clips but also performances by Walk Off the Earth, Pentatonix, Eric Hutchinson and Kina Grannis. You can also check out a clip of Pharrell surprising a class of Miami kids making their own video here. (3/20p)