Walk The Dinosaur

"Walk The Dinosaur" was written by Was (Not Was) members David Was and Don Was, and producer/songwriter Randy Jacobs. It was first released as a single in 1987, but ended up being included on their 1989 album What Up, Dog? This song has a colorful history and an interesting path to fame. Its amusing video and insanely catchy chorus helped it gain fame in the early days of MTV and their show Liquid Television. It also got some play in the Spike & Mike festivals. But its star would have faded by now if it hadn't been re-discovered in the 2000s and become an Internet meme. First George Clinton (of Parliament / Funkadelic fame) covered it with altered lyrics for the theme song to the pretty forgettable Super Mario Bros. film. A year later, it was part of the soundtrack for the 1994 film of The Flintstones - at last, somebody made the right movie for it to grow legs! Finally, Queen Latifah revived it for the 2009 animated film Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs, itself a sequel to the popular Ice Age franchise. It was this last usage, coupled with the inclusion of the song in the repertoire of the animatronic shows at the Chuck E. Cheese's pizza restaurant chain in 2011, that gave it new popularity with the younger generation. And suddenly, it was all over the web! Know Your Meme has a page showing the Google search stats spiking after the release of Ice Age, then trending up again after the Chuck E. Cheese bump.

Some of the quirks of this modern dinosaur story include a "Boom, boom, acka lacka boom boom" chant (sort of like the "Oooonga Chacka"s in "Hooked On A Feeling"), a video featuring four cavewomen doing a "Walk The Dinosaur" dance (sort of like "Walk Like An Egyptian"), and a reference to the hit TV show Miami Vice ("I felt a little tired, so I watched Miami Vice"), which ensured its place in '80s nostalgia. Note that in the third verse, he is no longer walking the dinosaur, he has now killed it, apparently in self defense.

Know Your Meme also remarks upon an interesting usage. It seems posting the lyrics to "Walk The Dinosaur" is a common alternative to "Bel-Air-ing." Now, what does "Bel-Air-ing" mean? It's a discussion-board meme where you post some long-winded shaggy dog story that seems to be leading to a payoff ending, but abruptly ends with some variation on the lyrics to the theme song to the TV series The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air. When people started to catch wise to this trick and scan to the end of long paragraphs looking for "Bel-Air," the trick was then changed to posting "Walk The Dinosaur" lyrics instead. There's also a few animated gifs out there flying around, with either the chorus lyrics set to animation or other videos of people opening doors, falling down, dinosaurs charging out of closets, etc.