The Hampster Dance

The Hampster Dance or Hampsterdance is one of the earliest examples of an Internet meme, originally a simple Geocities page featuring rows of animated hamsters and other rodents dancing in various ways to a sped-up sample from the song "Whistle Stop" by Roger Miller.

Overview

Canadian art student Deidre LaCarte, who was competing with her best friend and sister to see who could generate the most traffic, designed The Hampster Dance in August 1998 as a to her pet hamster, named "Hampton Hamster". Using four simple animated GIFs of hamsters and other rodents, repeated dozens of times each, and a loop of background music embedded in the HTML, then a fairly new browser feature, she named the site "Hampton's Hampster House" and had Hampton declare his intent to become a "web star". The clip, a 9-second loop WAV file (dedodedo.wav), was taken from the opening credits song, "Whistle Stop", to Walt Disney Production's 1973 animated version of "Robin Hood". It was eventually removed due to alleged infringement on Disney's copyright in the original song.Fact|date=March 2008 Until January 1999, only 800 visits were recorded (about 4 per day), but without warning, that jumped to 15,000 per day. The Web site spread by e-mail, early blogs, and bumper stickers, and was eventually even featured in a television commercial for Internet Service Provider Earthlink.

Fans of the site created variations on the original dance, using politicians such as Dan Quayle and Cynthia McKinney as well as household objects such as Pez dispensers and Lung X rays.

History

LaCarte failed to register the Hampsterdance name, and for some time the "hampsterdance.com" domain was owned by humor business Nutty Sites. Initially, "hamsterdance.com" was used, and later "hampsterdance2.com". "hampsterdance2.com" was registered and by 2002 had sold the rights to Abatis, Inc. which later acquired control of the first domain.fact|date=April 2008

Initially, the website consisted of a single page website with four hamsters and other rodents -- later dubbed Hampton, Dixie, Hado, and Fuzzy. Over the next few years alternate versions of the Hampsterdance appeared, such as for birthdays (the hamsters are slightly modified to hold presents). The continued popularity of the site led LaCarte to a professional redesign, and the addition of an online store for t-shirts and CDs of "Hampster" music.

Dr. Demento created a remix on his radio show in which the Hampster Dance recording interrupts a live recording, apparently speeding up the original, of Miller performing his original "Whistle Stop." This topped the Funny Five for several weeks.

In 2004 Abatis partnered with Unreal Productions of Keyport, NJ to redesign the original Hampsters into a full 3-D CGI contemporary "look and feel." The website was also redesigned using the new characters and a DVD is in production with the first of a new series of adventures with the Furry Foursome and their roadie, Frank The Ferret.

In 2005, CNET named The Hampster Dance the #1 web fad. [ [http://www.cnet.com/4520-11136_1-6268155-1.html Top 10 Web fads] - from CNET]

Pop culture

In Canada The "Official" Hampster Dance Song was released as a single and was declared worst or cheesiest video of the year by MuchMusic in the one-hour special Fromage 2001. It stayed for two weeks on the Canada Top 40, peaking at #38 [http://top40-charts.com/song.php?sid=481 Hampster Dance Song - Chart History] . In Australia "The Hampster Dance Song" was also released in 2001, credited to Hampton The Hampster. The song reached #5 on the ARIAnet singles chart [ [http://australian-charts.com/showitem.asp?interpret=Hampton+The+Hampster&titel=The+Hampsterdance+Song&cat=s australian-charts.com - Hampton The Hampster - The Hampsterdance Song ] ] , and spun off follow up releases and videos, such as "Thank God I'm A Country Boy" (a cover of the John Denver song, reaching #12) and "Hampster Party" (reaching #44).Fact|date=April 2007 It was also released in New Zealand at the same time, with similar results.Fact|date=April 2007 The Hampster Dance Song was featured in the 2001 movie "See Spot Run" and in the 2005 movie "Are We There Yet?". Debuting at Number 16 on July 30, 2000, "The Hampster Dance Song", ended its run in the Top 30 Countdown on Radio Disney in the United States in 2007. [ [http://radio.disney.go.com/music/top30.html Radio Disney Music Top 30 Countdown] ]

Tributes

On Friday, August 22, 2008, Robert Hrdinsky, Ulili Onovakpuri, and Alex Polvi of Mozilla launched [http://foxkehdance.com FoxkehDance.com] , a tribute site to the Hampster Dance featuring Mozilla's mascot Foxkeh in celebration of both the Hampster Dance and Mozilla's 10th birthdays. Polvi was also part of the team responsible for the [http://lug.oregonstate.edu/gallery/v/Summer-06/firefox-crop-circle/mg_5560.jpg.html Firefox Crop Circle] at Oregon State University.

Albums/Compilations

(in order of release)

*Hampster Dance: The Album
*Hampster Dance Party
*Happy Times Ten
*Hampster Dance Hits

Singles

(in order of release)

*The Hamster Dance Song
*Thank God I'm A Country Boy
*Sing A Simple Song
*Hampster Dance Christmas
*Time to Party

Track listings

See also

* Internet meme

References

External links

* [http://www.hampsterdance.com/ Hampsterdance.com] - Official Site
* [http://web.archive.org/web/19991123001948/http://www.geocities.com/Heartland/Bluffs/4157/hampdance.html original Geocities version] - archived November 1999
* [http://www.webhamster.com/ Original Hamster Dance]
* [http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/2001-06-14-ebrief.htm Hampster dancing into other venues]
* [http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=76HcLEunsws Hamster Dance] - on