♪ Ma-ia-hii Ma-ia-huu ♪
- Oh boy.
- This is the most influential piece of art
in the last two decades.
♪ (dramatic intro) ♪
- (FBE) So today, we're gonna be showing you a selection
of videos and all these videos went viral before YouTube
even existed. - What?
So there was viral videos before YouTube.
That's news to me.
- Where would you even see a viral video?
- Yeah, where were viral videos?
- There was no iPhones. You're not sharing anything.
- This is exciting, actually. - This is very exciting.
- Like break.com or eBaum's World.
- (mimicking explosion) We're doing some
archaeology now. That's exciting.
What horrors are we about to uncover?
- I'm gonna crush this one. I'm the oldest person,
not just in this room, but at VidCon.
♪ Ooga-chaka Ooga-chaka ♪
- I do not remember this.
- What is going on? Why did this go viral?
- Oh yeah.
- This was me.
♪ Ooga ooga ooga-chaka ♪
- Not this cursed image.
- That was it? Oh my God.
- The dancing baby from Ally McBeal,
which was a show I watched as it premiered.
I love the dancing baby still to this day,
but here's what I will say. I don't remember it being
that low res.
- I very well remember the dancing baby.
- Yeah. - I don't remember it being
that low res. - Right, yeah.
In my mind, it filled in all the pixels.
- (FBE) So that's 1996's dancing baby
or baby cha-cha and this video went
crazy viral and proceeded to show up in mainstream media,
most notably on Fox's Ally McBeal.
- Okay. - I don't think that baby
would hold up in today's viral thing--
today's social media climate. - But there was nothing.
- So that was probably the first thing ever.
- Memes haven't changed and meme humor hasn't changed
since 1996.
- Oh, okay. - Yes, yes.
I remember downloading this on Kazaa.
- Sure, Star Wars kid. - Of course, Star Wars dude.
A classic.
- Yeah.
- I did that because I liked it so much.
- He's got moves, man.
- Who hasn't picked up a stick or a cane
and pretended that they were Darth Vader?
Everyone has.
- Oh, what an icon.
- I definitely can see why that went viral.
I feel like that was just a vine or TikTok.
- I remember watching that and laughing at it
and then feeling bad years later when the guy who was in it
said that it was the worst thing that ever happened to him.
- The kid really probably had a really hard time
as a result of that video, but I've always thought
he was awesome.
- (FBE) So, this is Star Wars kid
and according to reports, the teen left the recorded tape
at school and the footage was then discovered
by classmates who posted it onto Kazaa,
which was a popular peer to peer file sharing site
and there are estimates that video has been viewed
at least a billion times, but there's no way
to accurately track its view count.
- Oh wow. A billion views.
- Everyone's kinda making fun of this guy
and I'm like, he's having fun, man.
He turns on that camera, he's living his truth.
♪ (dramatic music) ♪
- "In the spring of 1999, the Family Learning Channel
commissioned animator Don Hertzfeldt
to produce promotional segments for their network."
- "The cartoons were completed in five weeks.
The Family Learning Channel rejected all of them
upon review and they were never aired."
- What is this? - I know what this is.
I've seen this before.
- This I still watch about once a year.
- (figure) My spoon is too big.
- Yes, I know this one.
- Yeah, I remember this. - Do you know this?
- Uh huh.
- What is this? - This is some experimental film.
- (banana) I am a banana.
- I think I have a deep rooted thing in my head
and that's why I'm doing animation now
from this video.
- Yes, it's my favorite part coming up.
- (cloud) Everybody dance. - These are cute.
- Hell yeah, this one used to make me laugh so hard.
- Oh God.
- (cloud) My anus is bleeding. - Wait, what the hell?
- That really freaked me out when I was little.
I was worried about bleeding anuses
way too prematurely.
- (cloud) My anus is bleeding. - When I was ten,
I was like, "This is the funniest thing that's ever been created."
- I know what that's like, buddy.
It's no fun.
- I wonder what this artist went on to do
because this was so good.
- Oh no.
- Yeah, I can see why they rejected these.
- How does he have so much blood inside
of his little cloud body?
- I think the point of this is there's no point.
- (FBE) So, that was an animated short
titled "Rejected' made in 1999.
The short actually won 27 animation awards
around the globe and was actually
a 2001 Academy Award nominee.
- Wow, I'm so glad. I'm glad that that guy
got his dues because it is still to this day
one of my most favorite pieces.
- It's very good, but it also speaks
of the fact that there's animation that's on YouTube today
that should be getting nominated for
an Academy Award in the short animation category.
- Absolutely.
♪ Ma-ia-hii ♪
- Yes. - Numa Numa.
- There's Boogie. - You know that's not
actually Boogie, right? - Before I met him,
I thought for the longest time this actually was.
- I don't think I look anything like that kid,
but everyone else does.
♪ Ma-ia-haa ♪ - Yeah, I've definitely seen this.
♪ Ma-ia-hii Ma-ia-huu ♪
♪ Ma-ia-haa ♪ - This is just TikTok.
- ♪ Ma-ia-hoo Ma-ia-haa ♪
♪ Ma-ia-haa Ma-ia-hii ♪
- Yeah, I remember thinking this was the literal
funniest thing in the entire world.
- I did the same stuff in my room.
- Yeah. No one will admit it,
but everyone does that.
- That is an all time classic. In Europe, people like
playing this on the radio like, "Ah yes, our culture."
- Not to brag, but Hank is actually the leading
translator of the Numa Numa song into English,
which is... - There's a guy.
He's calling a girl on the phone and she's not interested.
- (FBE) That video's known as Numa Numa
and creator Gary Brolsma uploaded it to the website
Newgrounds in 2004 and is one of the most
viral videos of all time. - I remember Newgrounds.
- Newgrounds was just the wild west of content.
There was some weird stuff on there,
but that's cool that that was up there.
That was the first type of community
on a video website.
- I forgot about this one.
- Oh God, I love this video so much.
I haven't seen this in 20 years.
- (narrator) We got China, France, India, Israel,
Pakistan, Russia, the UK. - This is another one
I quoted all the time.
- This video was so big in middle school.
- (narrator) One day, we decide those Chinese
sons of a bitches are going down,
so we launched a nuke at China.
Once it's on its way, China's like "[bleep].
Who the [bleep] is shooting us?"
- It reminds me of a very base version of history
of the world.
- (narrator) And France is like, "[Bleep] guys, the missiles
are coming. Fire our [bleep].
But I'm le tired." - Le tired.
- (narrator) "The missiles are coming.
Fire our [bleep]. - But I am le tired.
- Well, have a nap. Then, fire the missiles.
Yeah, I remember.
- (narrator) So now we got missiles flying everywhere.
- Is this PewDiePie?
- He sounds like PewDiePie.
- (narrator) Some huge meteor's like "Well, [bleep] that."
- I like that we avoid the apocalypse
because the meteor isn't interested in us.
- (narrator) Assuming we don't blow ourselves up,
Californians just have to worry about California
breaking off from the United States to go
hang with Hawaii. Alaska can come too.
The end. - I remember that one
in the old Albino Blacksheep, Newground days.
It's one of my favorites.
- There's some good lines in there. That might be one of
the most quotable videos of all time.
I remember that was one of the first videos
I ever saw on the internet.
- (FBE) That was called The End of the World
Flash Animated Cartoon that was uploaded
to Albino Blacksheep in 2003 and the narration
in the cartoon created some iconic catchphrases
that were often used back in the day on the internet,
such as "I am le tired." - Okay, so that's where
that comes from. I used to say that
because other people said it.
- I say that to my friends all the time.
It's just part of the culture now. This is the most influential
piece of art in the last two decades.
- I am le tired. At the end of VidCon,
everyone is le tired.
♪ Badger, badger, badger ♪
- Yes.
- Weebl.
- Such chaotic neutral energy from Weebl.
♪ Oh, it's a snake ♪
- Classic. - Yeah, classic.
- So that's basically what goes on in my brain
on a daily basis.
- ♪ Badger, badger, badger, badger, badger, badger ♪
♪ Mushroom, mushroom ♪ - Weebl, underappreciated
god of the internet. He still does stuff.
Are you supporting him? You should be.
- That's internet roots right there. That's history.
That's gonna go in a textbook one day.
- The thing about that video is it gets so stuck in your head
very quickly and it won't leave.
- (FBE) That was created in 2003 by animator
known as Weebl and who still makes animated content
today on his YouTube channel known as Weebls Stuff.
- This was one of the first things that in my life went viral,
'cause I was at school and everyone was like,
"Have you heard of Badger, Badger?"
It was like that baby shark moment where it's like
it completely dominated the entire world.
- My big takeaway so far is we have come a long way
with internet content. But I mean, I used to love
this stuff, too. It's the more random, the better.
- ♪ There's a llama and another-- ♪
That was so instinctive.
- I've also covered this song. - Yeah.
- I've never seen this one.
- I remember this.
- ♪ I was once a treehouse I lived in a cake ♪
♪ But I never saw the way the orange slayed the rake ♪
I know the whole word. I could keep going.
It's really upsetting.
- It's such a simple video and literally anybody
could have edited that in Flash,
but it's one of those songs that again, just get into your head.
- (FBE) Reports date the llama song was uploaded first in 2004
to art titan DeviantArt where reportedly it racked up
over 50,000 views before spreading to Newgrounds
and Albino Blacksheep. - 50,000 views back in the day
was like you are the most famous person that's
ever existed.
- It's crazy that that entertained people back in the day.
Not much existed, so it was easy to go viral.
- I remember logging into Albino Blacksheep every day
to find something like that and when I found that,
I thought I found treasure.
♪ Peanut butter jelly time ♪
- Oh yes. I love this.
- This was everywhere. - This you would use on AIM
as your away message.
- ♪ Where he at? Where he at? ♪
♪ Now there he go There he go ♪
- ♪ Peanut butter jelly ♪
- It's still special.
- It was a lot funnier when I was younger.
♪ Peanut butter jelly Peanut butter jelly ♪
♪ Peanut butter jelly ♪ - I love this guy.
- I just don't get why it's a banana.
- It's a dancing banana. Don't have to ask questions.
- (FBE) That one's Peanut Butter Jelly Time
performed by the Buckwheat Boys.
- Performed by? Okay.
- (FBE) So this video's been remixed and reuploaded
so often, many think it came from YouTube,
but it was first uploaded in early 2002,
three years before YouTube. - Absolutely.
That was everywhere. Talk about an internet icon.
That's an internet icon.
- It's still really popular. I feel like everyone,
if they heard that, they would know.
They would sing along.
♪ We like the moon ♪
- Oh man, why do I know what this is?
- What is it? - It's Quiznos subs.
♪ 'Cause it is close to us ♪
- That's true.
- Ah, it's the sound of my last brain cell dying.
♪ But not as much as a spoon ♪
- I never saw that before. - Is that before or after
the Annoying Orange?
- I need to wash my eyes or something.
That was scary.
- Why are we still making content?
- Yeah. - We're done.
We did it. All the best stuff
has been made.
- (FBE) So that's We Like the Moon
created by Joel Veitch in 2003.
We Like the Moon actually got picked up
by Quiznos and became an inspiration for some
of its advertisements that appeared on television.
- That's right. Their terrifying ad campaign.
- I do remember that. Quiznos had some weird
little creature things like that. What about that makes
you wanna eat? - I don't wanna eat
your food with that face on it.
- If that's the thing making it, hell nah.
- (man) I'm just wild enough to do what God said.
That's why results happen. (fart noise)
- It's the farting preacher.
- (man) That's why... (fart noise)
I'm not talking about figuring it out with your brains.
(fart noise) - Oh gosh.
- Oh boy.
- (man) Hallelujah. The first thing that happened.
That's it. (fart noise)
- (man) Whoo! - I shouldn't be laughing
because it's just farts, but I love a good fart.
- It's literally the oldest joke. The fart joke is
the oldest joke in the world. It's in Greek comedies
from 2000 years ago and it's still great.
- I don't think I've ever seen that one.
That's the only one on this list that I do not
immediately recognize, but that's hilarious.
- (FBE) So, that was the farting preacher.
Some reports call this the original viral video
with some reports stating that in 1985, two men
began distributing VHS copies of the farting preacher
where it began to gain popularity across the country.
- Wow, a viral VHS.
- What's funny is there wasn't really sound effects.
People didn't play around with that, so to take something
that serious and then do that, I think that's great.
- Can we do a fart? (fart noises)
- Last time I saw this video was probably before
the first VidCon. I think that was in
a very weird but very pure stage of the internet
where people were just making stuff for the sake of
making weird stuff. There was no chance
it was gonna go viral to them, but it did.
- (FBE) Finally, we just talked about videos
that went viral before YouTube, which is now
arguably the most known way to go viral.
- Yeah. - (FBE) So do you think
any of these videos, if they were released today
would have gone as viral? - I don't think they would.
There's so many videos on the internet now,
it's so hard. Back in the day,
there was so few on the internet
that the quality threshold was so low.
- There's no one type of video that goes viral now
and I think that's why a lot of these videos
wouldn't necessarily go viral because they are
of one class, which is absurd humor.
- I think it depends on the platform
and I think the dancing baby, honestly, I would watch that
right now, but I don't think it makes sense for YouTube.
- We're so long format on YouTube.
I think a lot of the stuff, you're right, would work
maybe Vine format.
- Probably not. Probably it would just be
in the wash of stuff. - I don't think any of those
would go viral, but it does still happen where surprisingly
funny and weird content does go viral
like Bill Wurtz's History of the World,
so I have a lot of hope that versions of this,
better, cooler, newer versions can still go viral.
- Thanks for watching this episode of YouTubers React.
- Be sure to subscribe to all the creators
in this episode. The links are in the description.
- Goodbye, be safe.
- Hey guys, Vartuhi here from FBE. A huge thank you to all
the YouTubers that came out to shoot with us.
Make sure to support them by checking out their channels
and subscribing. Links in the description below.
Bye, guys.