The Hampster Dance
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The Hampster Dance (SIC) is an Internet humor fad originating from Hampsterdance.com (http://www.hampsterdance.com). The site features rows of animated hamsters dancing in various ways to a sped up sample from the song "Whistle Stop" by Roger Miller - itself featured in Walt Disney's 1973 animated version of Robin Hood. The website gained international status after being featured in a television commercial. Since then, fans of the Hampster Dance have initiated varieties of the original dance, as well as Hampster Dance products.
Initially, the website consisted of a simple page with four hamsters named Hampton, Dixie, Hado, and Fuzzy. Its third, most current revision began November 2002 (http://web.archive.org/web/20021112223913/%68ttp://www.hamsterdance.com/). The site remained unchanged until May 2000 (http://web.archive.org/web/20000520060341/%68ttp://hamsterdance.com/), where it was a part of Nutty Sites. It was relaunched on January 2002 as Hampster Dance 2 (http://web.archive.org/web/20020120233705/%68ttp://hamsterdance.com/), featuring a graphical redesign, and also sold T-shirts and CDs. The website's official spelling of "Hampster" adds an extra "P" for creative license, explained by the author.
The website also inspired the song "Irritating Hamster" by the artist DJ Mavica (http://www.modarchive.com/artists/mavica), and later "Cognoscenti Vs. Intelligentsia" by the Cuban Boys, the latter gaining much notoriety in the United Kingdom in 1999 (reaching #4 on the UK Singles Chart). In Australia "The Hampsterdance Song" was also released in 2001, credited to Hampton The Hampster. The song reached #5 on the ARIAnet singles chart, 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).
In Canada it was also released as a single and was declared worst or cheesiest video of the year by MuchMusic in the one-hour special Fromage 2001.
At the bottom it provided a link to visit related sites: Fishydance (http://web.archive.org/web/19991011205829//%68ttp://fishydance.com/), Cowdance (http://web.archive.org/web/19990508224204//%68ttp://www.cowdance.com/), and Boogie Blocks (http://web.archive.org/web/20000301123741//%68ttp://www.boogieblocks.com/), all similar themed pages with animated GIFs and short audio loops.
Many parodies of the Hamster Dance have been created as well.
See also: Internet phenomenon
External link
- Cuban Boys information (http://www.spraynet.co.uk/)