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The Hamster Dance is an Internet humor fad originating from Hampsterdance.com (http://www.hampsterdance.com). The site features rows of animated hamsters dancing in various ways to a sped up sample from Walt Disney's 1973 animated version of Robin Hood. The website gained international status after being featured in a television commercial. Since then, fans of the Hamster Dance have initiated varieties of the original dance, as well as Hamster Dance products.
Initially (http://web.archive.org/web/19990421044406/%68ttp://www.hampsterdance.com/), the website consisted of a simple page filled with four different hamsters; at the bottom it provided a link to visit related sites: Fishydance (http://web.archive.org/web/19991011205829//%68ttp://fishydance.com/), Cowdance (http://web.archive.org/web/19990508224204//%68ttp://www.cowdance.com/), and
Boogie Blocks (http://web.archive.org/web/20000301123741//%68ttp://www.boogieblocks.com/), all similar themed pages with animated GIFs and short audio loops. The site remained unchanged until May 2000 (http://web.archive.org/web/20000520060341/%68ttp://hamsterdance.com/), where it was a part of Nutty Sites; it was relaunched on January 2002 (http://web.archive.org/web/20020120233705/%68ttp://hamsterdance.com/) as Hampster Dance 2, featuring a graphical redesign, and also sold T-shirts and CDs. The four hamsters were named Hampton, Dixie, Hado, and Fuzzy. Its third, most current revision began November 2002 (http://web.archive.org/web/20021112223913/%68ttp://www.hamsterdance.com/).
The website's official spelling of "Hampster" adds an extra "P" for creative license, explained by the author.
The website also inspired the song "Cognoscenti Vs. Intelligentsia" (1999) by the Cuban Boys, which gained much notoriety in the United Kingdom.
Many parodies of the Hamster Dance have been created as well.
See also: Internet phenomenon
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