The "Dancing Baby," also called "Baby Cha-Cha," refers to an animated 3D model of a baby and 3D-rendered video animations of that baby dancing a sort of cha-cha style of dance for several seconds. The Dancing Baby animation quickly became a media phenomenon, Internet Phenomenon, Internet meme, and one of the first viral videos in the mid-to-late 1990s.
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The "Dancing Baby" phenomenon refers to a 3D rendered animation of a baby performing a cha-cha type dance. It originated as a collection of experimental testing data and files, ultimately released in Autumn of 1996 as a product sample source file (sk_baby.max) with the ground-breaking 3D character animation software product "Character Studio", used with 3D Studio Max (both products from Kinetix/Autodesk). The original sample source file was produced and prepared by the original Character Studio development team (Michael Girard, Susan Amkraut, John Chadwick, Paul Bloemink, John Hutchinson, Adam Felt) at Unreal Pictures and Kinetix/Autodesk, amongst several other sample files. The cha-cha animation was created using the "Biped" animation system of Character Studio by Robert Lurye and Michael Girard. The 3D model of a human baby was added later by the development team as one of the character "skins" for the rendered animation. The original model was courtesy of Viewpoint Datalabs, later modified for the Character Studio release by the beta manager, with the bulk of the skinning and rigging performed by John Chadwick using the "Physique" skin/deformation system in Character Studio, and final edits by John and member(s) of the Autodesk development team. After the first pre-release application of the 3D baby model to the cha-cha animation (and from pre-release showings), all Kinetix/Autodesk employees quickly began to realize it was most amusing to see a baby dance a cha-cha rather than just walk, This helped ensure the selection of the 'dancing baby' as a sample file for debut release of Character Studio and for demonstration videos in product promotion.
The animation of the original dancing baby data consists of heavily researched and adapted physics models to automate animation along with interpolated manually animated keyframes that are generated and synthesized by the "Biped" system of the Character Studio product. Contrary to popular misconceptions, none of the original Dancing Baby animation data were created using any motion capture at all.
After the 3D source file was released to public with the Character Studio product (Autumn 1996), not one, but many users and animators were empowered to render their own video clips of the 'original' animated dancing baby (sk_baby.max) and circulate these via the Compuserve (internet) forums, World Wide Web (commercial and private web sites), and in print ads and unrestricted e-mail. Such activity proliferated most significantly from mainstream (Windows users) royalty-free access to and widespread user renderings of the 3D dancing baby source file for use on internet and in broadcast television via several news editorials, advertisements, and even comic programming in local, national (U.S), and various international markets. The ease-of-use (reducing what previously took 3D animators weeks to achieve) and powerful functionality of the Character Studio product (and 3D Studio MAX, a first for the Windows platform) along with royalty-free 3D content made it very quick and easy for anyone to render and distribute complete animations of the "baby cha-cha" and other character animations.
As evidenced by the widespread use of the original file renderings used in many appearances between 1996 and 1998, no single use or particular end user or company's e-mails were responsible for proliferating this dancing baby animation and its initial internet phenomenon. The original animation and model are credited for its general appeal. Together with the fundamental amusement of seeing for the first time a baby's image actually perform a sophisticated dance step like the cha-cha, the rapid expansion of internet access and use at the time (between 1996–1998), the immediate (1996-forward) popularity of the Character Studio and 3ds max products (first-of-kind on Windows) with animators and 3D fx artists, the easy royalty-free accessibility to using and rendering the dancing baby's 3D source file, its world-wide usage in product marketing, and the resulting widespread use of the sk_baby.max file for product clips in television, news, advertisements, and thousands of websites are all credited with the "Dancing Baby" animation quickly becoming a media and internet phenomenon (or meme).
Original and virtually unmodified Dancing Baby animation clips using the sk_baby.max file appeared in a broad array of mainstream media, including television dramas (i.e. "Ally McBeal"), commercial advertisements, and music videos between 1996–1998 had a predominant influence on the proliferation of use of the original dancing baby animation. It is also arguable that the original cha-cha loop is extremely adaptable to many different styles of music as seen in various videos/clips of the original dancing baby cha-cha dance using songs spanning completely different genres.
Later, several interesting variations to the original animation were also produced by modifying the sk_baby.max sample file's animation and the baby model itself with noticeable changes, and some not even dancing at all. Many users/animators were responsible for improved, diverse, and even more amusing variations of the dancing baby animation and character model itself. However, evidentially the most widespread broadcasting, distribution and viewing of 'the' Dancing Baby animation that became so popular consist of lighted and rendered views of the original and/or virtually unmodified sk_baby.max model and animation. As a result, variations of the dancing baby animation did not become quite as popular or as influential as the original sk_baby.max animation and source file. This is evident by observing the references to most popular uses of Dancing Baby during the primary wave of its proliferation 1996-1997 and comparing those animations to the original sk_baby.max character mesh and animation to note they are virtually unchanged if at all. Some exceptional variations have followed, but cannot be credited for the original internet phenomenon and proliferation. Such stylized versions and parodies included a "drunken baby," a "rasta baby," a "samurai baby," and others, but neither of these has become as popular on the Internet as the original file, which still remains in active circulation, and has been adapted to various musical soundtracks.
The Dancing Baby animation spread quickly on popular web forums, individual web sites, international e-mail, demo videos, commercials, and eventually mainstream television. Awareness of the meme most significantly increased when featured on CBS, CNN, and on Fox's Ally McBeal comic drama series. The same animation was shown on several episodes of Ally McBeal as a recurring hallucination, suggesting a metaphor for the ticking of Ally's biological clock - further enhancing it as a 'meme'. On that show it was curiously accompanied by a Vonda Shepard cover of the song "Hooked on a Feeling." Various commercial advertisements presented the Dancing Baby animation to international markets continuing the mainstream media attention. This particular manifestation of the video, bound to the song, is widely distributed and referred to as the Ugachaka (or Oogachaka) Baby.
More examples of the Dancing Baby used in mainstream media are below.
The Dancing Baby made constant appearances in trade shows, world wide marketing media, and of course in mainstream media such as Television, Music Videos and later in film too:
Several video games have included references to the Dancing Baby.
The Dancing Baby is still occasionally referenced as a symbol of 1990s culture, or as part of a tradition dating back to the time of its popularity.