Top 5 Funny Retro Viral Animations and Video Clips

Back before Facebook and Stephen Colbert could make anything an internet sensation overnight, when telling your mom that something had gone viral was a health warning, internet videos were simpler, stupider, but still pretty funny. When I was in college, these videos spread like wildfire via email and word of mouth. There was no Facebook, Youtube, or Tosh.0 to help them along.

Here are my top five retro viral videos and animations. They may seem stupid now, but they were all the rage ten years ago.

In no particular order:

1. The Dancing Baby From Ally McBeal-

Honestly, I never understood why people loved this so much, but love it they did. This was the sort of animation that our moms forwarded to all their friends because it was so cute and that computer geeks watched for hours because the 3D animation was so rad. As I look back on it now, I realize that it doesn't really hold up.

2. The Hamster Dance-

Step 1: Line up animated gifs of cartoon hamsters. Step 2: Add catchy song. Step 3: Profit! Everyone who was anyone was doing the hamster dance in the late nineties. I'm not sure why, but it is pretty funny. When I dug it up to write this hub, it made me smile. You might want to bookmark this page for the next time you're feeling a little down in the dumps.

I remember when this page took a long time to load. No longer the case. Check out the original page here.

3. We Like the Moon!-

Rathergood.com has some pretty great animations, but this one was awesome enough to score its own Quiznos commercial. The spongmonkeys give all sorts of reasons to love the moon more than a lot of things, except for spoons which are good for eating soup, and cheese, and Zeppelins, and kelp, and fluffy animals . . . OK, they only like the moon, they don't love it.

Please check out Rathergood.com's other awesome animations.

4. Never Trust a Monkey

This is a clip from the popular show Space Ghost Coast to Coast. Brak tells a story about the time he used a monkey to take notes in class. The delivery in this clip is perfect. Easily the best of all of Brak's School Daze tales. Also, as a college professor I can confirm that it is never wise to trust a monkey!

5. Grape Stomping Goes Bad-

I know it is never nice to laugh at people who fall down, but since when is the internet nice? I can remember when this one hit the net, because everyone in my dorm was doing impressions of the lady who falls to the ground. She really face plants hard into the dirt. As the kids today say, Epic FAIL.

The good stuff comes around the 1 minute mark. Apparently she quit her job not long after this happened. There are whole websites devoted to her.

There were many more great videos, animations, and other nonsense floating around back then. If you have a favorite, please share.