
The oral history of the Hampsterdance - MilnerRoute
https://www.cbc.ca/arts/the-oral-history-of-the-hampsterdance-the-twisted-true-story-of-one-of-the-world-s-first-memes-1.4958325
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neom
I must confess: I partook in disrupting many a "Computers" class at the
Berwickshire High School in the late 90s. Turns out sub7 + every browser in
the class playing hamsterdance is a somewhat challenging teaching environment.
Sorry.

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sct202
How did the original hampster dance song (
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1qN72LEQnaU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1qN72LEQnaU)
) morph into this
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WptWKFk-C9Y](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WptWKFk-C9Y)

I'm not surprised their attempts to hold onto fame didn't work, it's like they
completely forgot what they had made.

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jeffwass
The _original_ hampster dance song was just a sped-up version of Whistle Stop,
from the 1973 Disney animated Robin Hood.

Original version and speed here, the section used starts at around 30s :
[https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=PKYEKhxWy6o](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=PKYEKhxWy6o)

Edit - This was mentioned in the article with a YouTube link as well.

~~~
taneq
> The original hampster dance song was just a sped-up version of Whistle Stop,
> from the 1973 Disney animated Robin Hood.

Mind. Blown. How have I never noticed this!

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asimjalis
Why is it "hampster" instead of "hamster"?

~~~
Kye
Some people pronounce it with a p. That's the reason behind just about every
spelling difference.

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nreilly
Anyone know about the original banana phone song? Ring ring ring ring ring
ring banana phone, boop boop be doop be doop. With a video that had someone
going crazy listening to it.

Oh. After trying to find it with google before, too many times, DDG found it
in one go:
[https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=UqWwsUhrFBw](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=UqWwsUhrFBw)

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krrrh
It would be great to see this sort of treatment for Mahir Cagri whose page
followed a similar trajectory at the time.

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na85
Honestly, looking at the little hamster dolls on the website, I'm not
surprised to see that they lost money.

Part of successful product development is making something people actually
want to buy - slick marketing will only take you so far as the juicero showed
us.

Those little hamster dolls just simply aren't cute or cuddly-looking.

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dang
Url changed from [https://news.slashdot.org/story/18/12/29/0227257/how-one-
mer...](https://news.slashdot.org/story/18/12/29/0227257/how-one-merchandiser-
lost-1m-trying-to-monetize-the-hamster-dance-site), which points to this.

