Dramatic Chipmunk
You might remember it as Dramatic Prairie Dog
Viral classics8 of 40
2007·Early YouTube·funny
Five seconds of an animal turning its head, and one of the first videos the internet used as a punctuation mark.
At a glanceThe facts
- Remembered as
- Dramatic Prairie Dog
- First known
- 2007
- Format
- Video
- Who or what it shows
- A prairie dog in a clear box
- Taken from
- The Japanese variety programme Hello! Morning, in a segment featuring the group Mini-Moni
- The song
- The three-note sting from John Morris’s score for Young Frankenstein (1974)
- Used to say
- A mock-dramatic reveal
- Origin
- Origin not yet established
- Available
- Playable from the source
What this wasThe story
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 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.
Why it matteredWhat changed
Five seconds long, it is the model for the reaction clip: a turn of the head, a sting of music, nothing else. It showed that a video could be a punctuation mark rather than a thing you watch.
TimelineIn order
- Made
Mel Brooks’s Young Frankenstein is released, with the orchestral sting by John Morris that the clip later borrows.1
- Posted
The earliest known version is uploaded to YouTube by the channel magnets99 under the title Dramatic Look.1
- Took off
YouTube and CollegeHumor both feature it.1
- Mainstream
South Park includes it in the episode Canada on Strike, as Dramatic Look Gopher.1
- Later
The Minnesota Golden Gophers begin playing it on the stadium screen at home games to put off opposing kickers.1
The version you rememberNot the same thing
Five seconds: the animal turns, the camera pushes in, the music hits. The music was added by whoever made the clip.1
A Japanese television variety programme in which the prairie dog is shown to the members of Mini-Moni. There is no sting and nothing dramatic about it. CollegeHumor later posted the longer footage as Undramatic Chipmunk.1
What people misrememberSet straight
Commonly remembered asA chipmunk.
ActuallyA prairie dog. South Park called it a gopher, which is also wrong.1
Commonly remembered asThe music is part of the original footage.
ActuallyThe footage is from Japanese television and the music is from a 1974 American film. Somebody put the two together in 2007.1
More from hereIn this collection
Why it is here: something the internet still knows by name · a moment that changed what the internet did next · still being watched and quoted years later
This is the copy ViralWorld can show you. Whether it is the first is not established.
Where it came fromWhat we know
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.
- When
- Originally published 2007.
- Where
- Known on YouTube.
More from 2007You were there
More from early YouTubeMore of the archive
SourcesWhat was read
Sources last read on . That date is about the history on this page. Whether the media still plays is checked separately and can change any day. How ViralWorld documents things