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2007·Early YouTube·funny

Dramatic Chipmunk

Five seconds of an animal turning its head, and one of the first videos the internet used as a punctuation mark.

You might remember it as Dramatic Prairie Dog

An early online video

See where it was on YouTube.

The story

What this was

A prairie dog in a transparent box turns its head towards the camera as the shot zooms in, over four bars of dramatic music. It is five seconds long, and it is not a chipmunk.

It first appeared in 2007, during early YouTube.

The footage is from the Japanese variety show Hello! Morning; the music is from Young Frankenstein. Neither is the joke. The joke is the cut — a reaction shot with nothing to react to — and it became a unit of internet grammar, used the way a rimshot is used.

It has been referenced in South Park and The Powerpuff Girls and played on stadium screens at Minnesota Golden Gophers games. The name stuck to the wrong animal and has never come off.

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More from 2007

The same internet

Early YouTube

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Grouped by explicit relationships where evidence exists, and by shared theme otherwise.

Behind the record

Where it came from

Original source uncertain. This is the earliest copy currently known.

No original upload has been established for this record. The index is showing the earliest copy it currently knows about, and says so rather than guessing.

Not established. This index only names a creator where the evidence supports it.

What happens
A prairie dog in a transparent box turns its head towards the camera as the shot zooms in, over four bars of dramatic music. It is five seconds long, and it is not a chipmunk.
When
Originally published 2007.
Where
Known on YouTube.

Other copies the index knows about. None is claimed to be the original.

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