Dramatic Chipmunk is a viral Internet video. The video is a 5-second clip of a

prairie dog Prairie dogs (genus ''Cynomys'') are herbivorous burrowing ground squirrels native to the grasslands of North America. Within the genus are five species: black-tailed, white-tailed, Gunnison's, Utah, and Mexican prairie dogs. In Mexico, p ...

(erroneously referred to as a

chipmunk Chipmunks are small, striped rodents of the family Sciuridae. Chipmunks are found in North America, with the exception of the Siberian chipmunk which is found primarily in Asia. Taxonomy and systematics Chipmunks may be classified either as ...

) turning its head while the camera zooms in and dramatic music is played.

Origins

The clip became widely known through uploads on

YouTube YouTube is a global online video platform, online video sharing and social media, social media platform headquartered in San Bruno, California. It was launched on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim. It is owned by ...

and

CollegeHumor CollegeHumor is an Internet comedy company based in Los Angeles. Aside from producing content for release on YouTube, it was also a former humor website owned by InterActiveCorp ( IAC) until January 2020, when IAC withdrew funding and the websi ...

on June 19, 2007. An earlier and identical version, titled as ''Dramatic Look'', had been uploaded to YouTube on June 6, 2007. The clip of the prairie dog is from the Japanese television show ''

Hello! Morning was a weekly Japanese TV show featuring members of Morning Musume, and sometimes other Hello! Project members on TV Tokyo. It was also known by the shorter name of . On April 1, 2007, the show ended after seven years of broadcast. A new show f ...

'' featuring

Mini-Moni was a sub-unit of the Japanese idol girl groups Morning Musume and Coconuts Musume. It was formed by Up-Front Promotion in 2000 and associated with Hello! Project. The group was founded by Morning Musume members Mari Yaguchi, Nozomi Tsuji, and ...

's segment, ''Mini-Moni Chiccha''. The clip has a

inside a transparent box being shown to the hosts in the studio. CollegeHumor also released a longer clip under the title ''Undramatic Chipmunk'', showing how the video looked in the original Japanese version. The audio used in ''Dramatic Chipmunk'' is taken from the score of the 1974

Mel Brooks Mel Brooks (born Melvin James Kaminsky; June 28, 1926) is an American actor, comedian and filmmaker. With a career spanning over seven decades, he is known as a writer and director of a variety of successful broad farces and parodies. He began h ...

film ''

Young Frankenstein ''Young Frankenstein'' is a 1974 American comedy horror film directed by Mel Brooks. The screenplay was co-written by Brooks and Gene Wilder. Wilder also starred in the lead role as the title character, a descendant of the infamous Dr. Victor F ...

'', which was composed by two-time

Oscar Oscar, OSCAR, or The Oscar may refer to: People * Oscar (given name), an Irish- and English-language name also used in other languages; the article includes the names Oskar, Oskari, Oszkár, Óscar, and other forms. * Oscar (Irish mythology), ...

nominee (and longtime Brooks collaborator) John Morris, and orchestrated by Morris and EGOT recipient

Jonathan Tunick Jonathan Tunick (born April 19, 1938, New York City) is an American orchestrator, musical director, and composer, and one of seventeen " EGOTs" - people to have won all four major American showbusiness awards: the Tony Awards, Academy Awards, Emmy A ...

. It uses three dramatic

chords Chord may refer to: * Chord (music), an aggregate of musical pitches sounded simultaneously ** Guitar chord a chord played on a guitar, which has a particular tuning * Chord (geometry), a line segment joining two points on a curve * Chord (as ...

(A minor, C minor, and E minor) performed in full orchestral

tutti ''Tutti'' is an Italian word literally meaning ''all'' or ''together'' and is used as a musical term, for the whole orchestra as opposed to the soloist. It is applied similarly to choral music, where the whole section or choir is called to sing. M ...

, and has a rumble of kettledrums in the background. The "chipmunk" turns its head and stares at the camera with a "surprised" look while the music is played.

Popularity

Since its release, the video has received over fifty million views.Determining an exact figure is impossible, because the video is uploaded multiple times on different websites. Th
most popular version on YouTube
had over 36 million views
Other versions on YouTube
have received millions of views each. ''

People Magazine ''People'' is an American weekly magazine that specializes in celebrity news and human-interest stories. It is published by Dotdash Meredith, a subsidiary of IAC (company), IAC. With a readership of 46.6 million adults in 2009, ''People ...

'' named the Dramatic Chipmunk as one of The 10 Wildest YouTube Stars of 2007. Since 2013, the

Minnesota Golden Gophers The Minnesota Golden Gophers (commonly shortened to Gophers) are the college sports teams of the University of Minnesota. The university fields a total of 25 (12 men's, 13 women's) teams in both men's and women's sports and competes in the Big Te ...

have been known to play the Dramatic Chipmunk video on the Jumbotron during home football games to distract opposing kickers. In the video game ''

Overwatch ''Overwatch'' is a multimedia franchise centered on a series of online multiplayer first-person shooter (FPS) video games developed by Blizzard Entertainment: ''Overwatch'' released in 2016, and ''Overwatch 2'' released in 2022. Both games fea ...

'', the

Wrecking Ball A wrecking ball is a heavy steel ball, usually hung from a crane, that is used for demolishing large buildings. It was most commonly in use during the 1950s and 1960s. Several wrecking companies claim to have invented the wrecking ball. An e ...

character – an enhanced-intelligent hamster that pilots a

mecha In science fiction, or mechs are giant robots or machines controlled by people, typically depicted as humanoid walking vehicles. The term was first used in Japanese (language), Japanese after shortening the English loanword or , but the mean ...

– was given a highlight introduction in April 2019 that spoofs the Dramatic Chipmunk meme.

Notes

References

{{reflist Individual rodents Viral videos Internet humor Animals on the Internet Prairie dogs 2007 YouTube videos Internet memes introduced in 2007 Film and television memes

Origins

Popularity

Notes

References

Audio