Christian the Lion - Moving Video, Several Versions

First, the warm fuzzy stuff: Two young men raise a lion cub in their home. The lion's name is Christian. When Christian the Lion gets too big for them to handle, the youngsters release Christian in Africa.

A year later, they return to Africa, meet Christian - who is glad to see them. Touching hugs all around.

There are quite a few YouTube videos involving Christian the Lion, including:

• "Christian the Lion - the full story (in HQ)"
  (Featured in a Los Angeles Times blog)
  YouTube video (June 28, 2008)
  2:28
  
• "Christian the Lion"
  YouTube video (April 16, 2008)
  1:16
  
• "Christian The Lion At World's End"
  YouTube video (July 2, 2007)
  2:32
  

There's a rather nice writeup, "The story behind 'Christian the lion' hugging video unfolds" in L.A. Unleashed: All Things Animal in Southern California and Beyond (a Los Angeles Times blog (July 22, 2008)).

I did a little checking, found those three videos (and quite a few more, actually, but that's a sort of 'best of' what I saw), and something a bit more substantive than the copies of segments of copies that are multiplying on YouTube.

From Snopes.com: "Lion Hug." The story of Christian the Lion is essentially true.

Briefly, Autstralian John Rendall and his friend Ace Bert bought a lion cub named Christian from Harrods in 1969. Bill Travers and Virginia McKenna, actors in "Born Free" (1966), and conservationist George Adamson (husband of Joy "Born Free" Adamson) got involved. Eventually Christian was released in Kenya's Kora Reserve.
I'll let you read details at Snopes.

The July 2, 2007, YouTube video seems to be a bit closer to the source than the others.

On IMDB, I found:

• "The Lion at World's End" (1971)
  (Released in America as "Christian the Lion" and "The Lion That Thought He Was People")
• "Born Free" (1966)
  (George Adamson was chief technical adviser in the film. The onscreen George Adamson was played by Bill Travers.)
• "To Walk With Lions" (1999)
  (Richard Harris played George Adamson in this movie.)

That was quite a trip: from a hearwarming YouTube video, to a sixties cultural landmark, by way of a lion.