{{short description|Short CGI video, one of the earliest examples of a meme or viral video}} thumb|Screenshot of the dancing baby The "'''Dancing Baby'''", also called "'''Baby Cha-Cha'''" or "'''the Oogachacka Baby'''", is an internet meme of a 3D-rendered animation of a baby performing a cha-cha type dance. It quickly became a media phenomenon in the United States and one of the first viral videos in 1996.<ref>{{cite web |title=Dancing Baby meme - Yahoo Video Search Results |url=https://video.search.yahoo.com/search/video;_ylt=Awr.wKPfSgBpaFc.YQT7w8QF;_ylu=c2VjA3NlYXJjaAR2dGlkAw--;_ylc=X1MDOTY3ODEzMDcEX3IDMgRmcgN5ZnAtdARmcjIDcDpzLHY6dixtOnNiLHJnbjp0b3AEZ3ByaWQDSlJSeDdjZ1pRakdKTUhqcnRPM2hxQQRuX3JzbHQDMARuX3N1Z2cDMwRvcmlnaW4DdmlkZW8uc2VhcmNoLnlhaG9vLmNvbQRwb3MDMARwcXN0cgMEcHFzdHJsAzAEcXN0cmwDMTcEcXVlcnkDRGFuY2luZyUyMEJhYnklMjBtZW1lBHRfc3RtcAMxNzYxNjI2ODkw?p=Dancing+Baby+meme&ei=UTF-8&fr2=p%3As%2Cv%3Av%2Cm%3Asb%2Crgn%3Atop&fr=yfp-t&vm=r#id=2&vid=fbd8d03c1c58b8f7245134d47d58adc0&action=view |website=Yahoo}}</ref>
== Origin == The original baby model file, Viewpoint Datalab's commercially available "Toddler with Diaper" Model #5653, was distributed in Character Studio, a plug-in for the Autodesk 3ds Max application (known as "3D Studio Max" at the time) from a division of Autodesk, Kinetix.<ref name="NYT1">{{Cite web |last=Mirapaul |first=Matthew |date=July 24, 1997 |title=Oh, Baby! The Story of a Toddler Who Traveled the Web |url=https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/library/cyber/mirapaul/072497mirapaul.html |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220807214220/https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/library/cyber/mirapaul/072497mirapaul.html |archive-date=August 7, 2022 |access-date=August 10, 2022 |website=The New York Times}}</ref><ref name="LATimes">{{Cite web |last=Johnson |first=Greg |date=April 2, 1998 |title=Baby Bloomers |url=https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1998-apr-02-fi-35154-story.html |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220811204518/https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1998-apr-02-fi-35154-story.html |archive-date=August 11, 2022 |access-date=August 12, 2022 |website=Los Angeles Times}}</ref>
Robert Lurye, who was animating at Rhythm and Hues Studios, was hired by the software company Unreal Pictures and told to make more samples for their animation program prototype, the future Character Studio. Lurye started changing the choreography of a dancing adult skeleton that had been made by the team (the "chacha.bip" file).<ref name="NYT1" /><ref name="Vulture2">{{Cite web |last=Friedlander |first=Whitney |date=October 9, 2020 |title=Where Do Dancing Babies Come From? The Story Behind a Classic Ally McBeal Scene |url=https://www.vulture.com/article/ally-mcbeal-cro-magnon-dancing-baby-scene.html |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210508053731/https://www.vulture.com/article/ally-mcbeal-cro-magnon-dancing-baby-scene.html |archive-date=May 8, 2021 |access-date=August 10, 2022 |website=Vulture}}</ref> He added more dance moves, such as making it "play air guitar for a second and bend over and shake its shoulders."<ref name="NYT1" /> The program had multiple renderings of creatures that could be animated, including an alien, a dinosaur and a baby.<ref name="Vulture2" /> The 3-D model of the baby had been developed by Viewpoint DataLabs' Tony Morrill, and was based on a scan of a plastic doll.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Rossen |first=Jake |date=August 15, 2024 |title=‘Ooga Chaka’: How Dancing ‘Baby Cha’ (Briefly) Took Over the ’90s |url=https://www.mentalfloss.com/entertainment/tv/ally-mcbeal-dancing-baby-cha-history |url-status=live |access-date=January 14, 2025 |website=Mental Floss}}</ref> Team member John Chadwick, by using the Physique software, made the baby model perform the skeleton's dance. He stated that it was his idea to load the dancing animation on the baby.<ref name="TheDailyDot1">{{Cite web |last=Schroeder |first=Audra |date=November 12, 2021 |title=The many lives of the Dancing Baby, cyberspace's first cringe meme |url=https://www.dailydot.com/unclick/dancing-baby-meme-history/ |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220718030255/https://www.dailydot.com/unclick/dancing-baby-meme-history/ |archive-date=July 18, 2022 |access-date=August 10, 2022 |website=The Daily Dot}}</ref> Vulture reports that the animation was also developed by Paul Bloemink, John Hutchinson and Adam Felt.<ref name="Vulture1">{{Cite web |last1=Vilas-Boas |first1=Eric |last2=Maher |first2=John |date=October 5, 2020 |title=The 100 Most Influential Sequences in Animation History |url=https://www.vulture.com/article/most-influential-best-scenes-animation-history.html |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220712043010/https://www.vulture.com/article/most-influential-best-scenes-animation-history.html |archive-date=July 12, 2022 |access-date=August 10, 2022 |website=Vulture}}</ref>
The result was a file with the name "sk_baby.max".<ref name="Vulture1" /> Kinetix exhibited a demo of the Dancing Baby in the 1995 SIGGRAPH computer graphics conference. Character Studio was released in August 1996. According to ''The New York Times'', Unreal Pictures co-founder Michael Girard had discarded the Dancing Baby, opining it was "disturbing" for its realistic nature.<ref name="NYT1" />
== Spread ==
LucasArts animator and Autodesk customer Ron Lussier recovered the Dancing Baby by recombining the chacha.bip file with the baby model (which was commercially available), made some minor changes and posted it on a CompuServe Internet forum as an .avi format.<ref name="NYT1" /><ref name="Vulture2" /><ref name="CNN">{{Cite web |last=Jacqui Palumbo |date=5 May 2022 |title=The internet's famous dancing baby from 1996 is getting a new look |url=https://www.cnn.com/style/article/dancing-baby-meme-nft/index.html |access-date=2022-06-21 |website=CNN |language=en}}</ref> He also reportedly sent the Dancing Baby to his colleagues by e-mail.<ref name="EWeekly">{{Cite magazine |last=Wolk |first=Josh |date=April 1, 1998 |title=Dance Fever |url=https://ew.com/article/1998/04/01/dance-fever/ |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20151119070822/http://www.ew.com/article/1998/04/01/dance-fever |archive-date=November 19, 2015 |access-date=August 12, 2022 |magazine=Entertainment Weekly}}</ref><ref name="WaPo">{{Cite news |last=Colton |first=Michael |date=April 13, 1998 |title=The Dancing Baby's Mainstream Boogie |url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/lifestyle/1998/04/13/the-dancing-babys-mainstream-boogie/f6a21c0d-e944-49a7-aa50-a2a57779b60f/ |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170827070530/https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/lifestyle/1998/04/13/the-dancing-babys-mainstream-boogie/f6a21c0d-e944-49a7-aa50-a2a57779b60f/ |archive-date=August 27, 2017 |access-date=August 12, 2022 |newspaper=The Washington Post}}</ref> Although Girard credits Lussier as being responsible for the meme's spread,<ref name="CNN" /> news website ''Vox'' reports that the meme became viral after it was converted and posted as an animated GIF by developer John Woodell.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Romano |first=Aja |date=June 15, 2017 |title=The GIF is 30 years old. It didn't just shape the internet — it grew up with the internet |url=https://www.vox.com/culture/2017/6/15/15802136/gif-turns-30-evolution-internet-history |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220621143907/https://www.vox.com/culture/2017/6/15/15802136/gif-turns-30-evolution-internet-history |archive-date=June 21, 2022 |access-date=August 12, 2022 |website=Vox}}</ref>
Before becoming an art director for Nine Inch Nails, Rob Sheridan shared that in April 1997, when he was 17, he contributed to the meme's early fame and ran a “Dancing Baby” fan site known as "''The Unofficial Dancing Baby Homepage"'' where users could submit their own variations and Sheridan posting them on the site.<ref name="CNN" /><ref name=":0">{{Cite web |title=I Have a Confession to Make {{!}} Rob Sheridan |url=https://www.patreon.com/posts/i-have-to-make-16584611 |access-date=2026-02-24 |website=Patreon |language=en-US}}</ref> A popular variation contained the song "Hooked on a Feeling" by Blue Swede, hence the name "Oogachacka Baby", propelling the meme to viral status between 1997–1998. In 1998, Sheridan was interviewed by news outlets about his website.<ref name=":0" />
Users and animators were able to render their own video clips of the 'original' animated dancing baby (sk_baby.max) and circulate these via the Compuserve Internet forums and the World Wide Web (commercial and private websites) and in e-mail. Such activity proliferated most significantly from mainstream (Windows users) royalty-free access to—and user renderings of—the 3D dancing baby source file for use on the Internet and in broadcast television via several news editorials, advertisements, and even comic programming in local, national, and international markets. Woodell's animated GIF then proliferated to numerous other websites, and later proceeded to show up in a broad array of mainstream media, including television dramas such as ''Ally McBeal'',<ref name="Vulture2" /> commercial advertisements, and music videos between 1997 and 1998.
=== Modifications === Variations to the original animation were later produced by numerous animators by modifying the sk_baby.max sample file's animation or the baby model itself, including a "drunk baby", a "rasta baby", a "samurai baby", and others.<ref name="CNN" /> However, none of these became as popular on the Internet as the original file, and most popular uses of Dancing Baby are virtually unchanged from the original character mesh and animation.
==See also== {{portal|1990s}} * Internet celebrity * Viral videos * ''Lenz v. Universal Music Corp.''
==References== {{reflist}}
== External links == * [http://www.dancing-baby.net/BabyMus1.htm Internet Dancing Baby site] - contains a copy of one of the original dancing baby renderings * [https://edition.cnn.com/style/article/dancing-baby-meme-nft/index.html The internet's famous dancing baby from 1996 is getting a new look] - Arts Story Page, CNN, June 2022
Category:1990s fads and trends Category:Fictional infants Category:1990s viral videos Category:Cha-cha-cha Category:Internet memes introduced in 1996 Category:Digital artworks