I recently came across this silly video, and have since become interested in its evolution.
- How the Dramatic Prairie Dog was Born: A short clip from some Japanese tv show. About 10 seconds in, a prairie dog turns around and the camera zooms in. Kinda funny, but nothing special at this point.
- Dramatic Chipmunk: Someone isolates the funny part, and sets it to dramatic music.
- Dramatic Chipmunk CURSES: The progression continues, this time with a twirly mustache, monacle, and tophat.
- At this point, the variants explode: The pervert version, the Dr. Evil version, and the thriller version.
- My personal favorite version is the one set to Kill Bill music.
It’s strange how these memes progress. Is this really a worthwhile enterprise? It’s amusing and fun, but also ephemeral. My initial thoughts are that stuff like this, while not necessarily brilliant in themselves, are a natural byproduct of a system that will produce good content. In other words, if you want to create something great, you’ll probably have to endure creating a lot of crap before you cross over into greatness. Same thing with blogs, I think. Everyone tries different things and experiments, but only a few blogs become really good.
I probably shouldn’t actually admit how many times I watched ‘Dramatic Chipmunk’ or how disappointed I am there aren’t even more versions or that I might even make one of my own if I can come up with something funny enough. Ephemeral? Pssh. I’m getting it tattooed and when people ask about it, I’ll recreate the dramatic music with my voice.
This is kinda what I was getting at with my referential post a few weeks ago. You’re going to have this dramatic look praire dog on your arm and it’s so random that only a few people will get the reference. I bet it would make a good joke on Family Guy too…
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