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The Dancing Baby
Of all of the things floating around out there on the web, the Dancing Baby is the first iStuff that I can remember. I received it as an email with some typical heading like "Check this Out!!" while working as a summer intern some four years ago. I can't remember who sent it to me, though I do recall having a hell of a time trying to open the file since, back then, I was clueless where computers were concerned.
A few talented IT-guys later, I was finally able to view the file and remember being awed by the fact that this animated, musical file could simply be transferred digitally via e-mail. Yeah, I had received images as attachments before, but they were static, just like any word document. Here was something a lot more complex.
Apparently I wasn't the only one fascinated by the disco tyke. Referred to as one of the "silliest and most popular web crazes" in an article on Salon.com, the Dancing Baby's widespread popularity landed it a spot on "Ally McBeal." Additionally, it has appeared in a couple commercials, one for CMI Films and another for Blockbuster.
So what made the Dancing Baby so popular? By today's standards, the animated file is far from spectacular. However, when it was introduced, the Dancing Baby was a unique combination of the high-tech and the kitsch. It was bizarre to watch this little baby dance in rhythm to the familiar "Uga Chucka" song. Eventually, of course, the seemingly innocent infant was parodied and drunken babies with broken beer bottles and cigarettes quickly made their rounds around the e-mail circuit.
Today, the original creators of the Dancing Baby continue to amuse visitors with their own spin-offs, including Biker Baby and several free-form dancers and acrobats. There's also a pluthera of Dancing Baby screensavers free for the taking!
The original Dancing Baby was created by Viewpoint DataLabs (the baby), Unreal Pictures (the choreography) and depending on the version, Ron Lussier (textures, lighting, and other tweaks). The dancing baby was created with 3DStudio Max and Character Studio (from Discreet /Kinetix), with demo files that ship with the product.
Related Links and suchDancing Baby Avenue
http://members.aol.com/babyavenue/ babyavenue.html
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