The Dancing Baby

1996

Date: Autumn 1996, mainstream peak September 1998 · Place: Kinetix (Autodesk subsidiary), San Francisco · Ally McBeal, Fox Broadcasting · Figures: Michael Girard, 3D animator, Kinetix · Robert Lurye, animator · David E. Kelley, showrunner, Ally McBeal · Tags: Viral Video Precursor, 3D Animation, Forward This 01. A Character Studio Demo File Michael Girard and Robert Lurye build a sample animation for Character Studio, an Autodesk 3D Studio Max plugin, in autumn 1996. It is a diapered toddler doing the cha-cha in a void, included on the demo disc so animators can study motion-capture bone rigs. A LucasArts developer named Ron Lussier optimises the file, retitles it Baby Cha-Cha-Cha, and forwards it around. By summer 1997 it is forwarded around the entire AOL-using world as a .gif and as an .avi. 02. Crossover On Ally McBeal On 9 September 1998, the season premiere of Ally McBeal includes the Dancing Baby as a recurring hallucination representing Ally's biological clock. Network television acknowledges an internet meme on prime time, an early-historic milestone. Blue Swede's Hooked on a Feeling overlays the baby's dance. It is the first viral video in the modern sense: a file circulated independently of its origin, decoupled from authorship, mutated, captioned, broadcast back to its audience by mass media. Sources • The New York Times, 'The Dancing Baby Goes Mainstream' (Lisa Napoli, 11 September 1998) • Wired, 'Hooked on a Feeling' (Steve Silberman, 13 August 1998) • Know Your Meme, 'Dancing Baby'