Dance Sensation

Criminologist: It's just a jump to the left.
Guests: And then a step to the right!
Criminologist: Put your hand on your hips.
Guests: You bring your knees in tight!
But it's the pelvic thrust,
That really drives you insane!
LET'S DO THE TIME WARP AGAIN!

— The Rocky Horror Picture Show, "The Time Warp"

So, there's this dance craze, or so a song insists.

If everybody's doing it now, then you might want to know the steps. The lyrics may explain a few easy-to-do steps, but often keep it intentionally vague if a choreographer is responsible for the real steps.

Mostly, the lyrics tend to say how popular the dance is and how it makes people feel while they do it, maybe throwing in a few references to other dances which it is or isn't like.

One thing is required: the rhythm has to be catchy.

---

Examples:

Anime & Manga

• The Dancing Theme from the ending credits of The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya, "Hare Hare Yukai", is one of these for anime fans. When the anime was at the height of its popularity in the mid-to-late 2000s, it was common to see cosplayers do it at conventions or on YouTube. Konata from Lucky Star is fond of the anime and has done the dance (a reference to how she and Haruhi are both voiced by Aya Hirano). The dance itself has caused many memes such as "Is this a dancing anime?"
• The first ending theme from Yo-kai Watch caused this in Japan with kids. It's not unknown to hear that primary schoolers danced it for school events.

Fan Works

• The "Pony Rock Anthem" is the brony version of this trope. It sure aims at bringing you in the rythme.
  Get up. Get down.
  Put your hooves up to the sound.
  Jump up. Stomp down.
  Every pony hit the ground.
  Get up. Get down.
  Put your hooves up to the sound.
  Jump up. Stomp down.
  Every pony hit the ground.

Films — Animation

• My Little Pony: Equestria Girls: The "Cafeteria Song" (a.k.a. "Helping Twilight Win the Crown") contains some move or dance instructions in the lyrics, including the chorus:
  Jump up, make a sound (Hey!)
  Stomp your hooves, turn around
  Start now, make a change,
  Gonna come around
  Jump up, make a sound (Hey!)
  Stomp your hooves, turn around
  Canterlot, Wondercolts
  Help her win the crown!

Films — Live-Action

• The Fred Astaire-Ginger Rogers movies were famous for these: they introduced "The Carioca" in Flying Down to Rio, "The Continental" in The Gay Divorcee, "The Piccolino" in Top Hat, "The Yam" in Carefree, and "Swing Trot" in The Barkleys of Broadway.
• "Hoe Down" from Babes On Broadway.
• "The French Mistake" from Blazing Saddles
• From The Blues Brothers, Ray Charles' "Twist It" becomes this, especially with the accompanying Spontaneous Choreography.
• "Ballroom Dancing" by Paul McCartney is a past-tense version. (Listed here because the song eventually reached Give My Regards to Broad Street.)
• At least 20% of Hairspray (the original) is a compilation of these songs.
• "The Time Warp" from The Rocky Horror Picture Show, originally written as a parody of this very trope. It mentions a fair number of steps:
  It's just a jump to the left
  And then a step to the right
  Put your hands on your hips
  And bring your knees in tight
  But it's the pelvic thrust that really drives you insane
  LET'S DO THE TIME WARP AGAIN!
• "The Tina-Lina" in The Toast Of New Orleans.
• In Why Be Good?, Pert Kelly wins a dancing contest for the 1920s dance craze, the Charleston.

Live-Action TV

• "Do the Urkel" from Family Matters.
• Girls5eva: "The Splingee" is Dawn's attempt at creating a dance sensation: the lyrics list out the choreography. Their one attempt at performing it live bumbles, but Dawn eventually sells it to Nance Trace, who diverts it to popular TikTokers who perform it at Jingle Ball, indicating it will go viral after all.
• The Goodies:
  • Spoofed in one episode where they were being tasked — by a musical Mad Hatter, no less — with writing a hit song. They belted up a squaredance tune, and Bill improvised fairly ordinary squaredance lyrics which were being followed exactly by the Mad Hatter's goons, ending with this (paraphrased):
    Now with your partner you shout
    Open the window and jump out
  • Also, "The Funky Gibbon". And in another routine called "Poor Old Soul" on "Almost Live", they named dance sensations like the "loony moth", "festering ferret", and "dead dog".
  • In "The Goodies Rule — OK?", the Goodies "Bounce" song starts the entire country bouncing, bringing the economy to the halt. Even the newsreader announcing the crisis can't stop bouncing up and down, even when he's tied to his chair.
• The Hannah Montana movie has the "Hoedown Throwdown". Even in-universe, this one is stretching Willing Suspension of Disbelief a bit.
• Leather Tuscadero wrote & performed "Do the Fonzie" on Happy Days.
• Carmine Ragusa sang "Do the Carmine" on Laverne & Shirley.
• The Lets Go Show has "Do the You."
• Parodied in The Office (US) when Michael Scott's spy character, Michael Scarn, does "the Scarn". Its steps are all incredibly easy to do, and there are only five of them before they repeat. The only reason other people are doing the dance with him is because he is directing the movie.
• Spitting Image parodies Black Lace with "The Chicken Song".
  Hold a chicken in the air
  Stick a deckchair up your nose
  Buy a jumbo jet
  And then bury all your clothes
• Tiswas, a Saturday morning staple of British TV in The '70s, came up with "The Dying Fly".

Music

• And then you have the songs that pack a bunch of dance moves into one track, something like a dance-move Medley.
  • Most famous example: "Land of 1,000 Dances".
  • A Hip-Hop example: "Stop Pause" by DJ Jubilee.
• There are several line dance songs that faded away after coming out but are still popular among African-Americans, for example, "The Cupid Shuffle" and "Wobble".
• Parodied in "The Sacro-Iliac" by 10CC:
  Here's what you gotta do...
  Nuthin!
  In any tempo, in any rhythm...
  Come right back and do the Sacro-Iliac.
• Black Lace ran on this trope, especially with songs like "Superman", "Agadoo" and "I am the Music Man" telling the listener how to do the dance.
• "The Salmon Dance" by The Chemical Brothers tells the listener how to do the titular dance, lists facts about salmon, and has a verse where Fatlip describes other people's reaction to the dance.
  Put your hands to the side, as silly as it seems
  And shake your body like a salmon floating up stream
• Daniel Amos: The Vox Humana liner notes included instructions for dancing to "Dance Stop". The exact dance steps are up to the individual, but you're supposed to freeze in place every time the music stops, and only resume dancing when it starts up again.
• The 1913 hit "Ballin' the Jack" is another candidate for the Ur-Example.
  Step around the floor kind of nice and light
  Then you twist around and twist around with all your might
  Stretch your lovin' arms straight out in space
  Then you do the Eagle Rock with style and grace
  Swing your foot way 'round then bring it back
  Now that's what I call Ballin' the Jack!
• The Bangles' "Walk like an Egyptian":
  Slide your feet up the street bend your back
  Shift your arm then you pull it back
  Life is hard you know (oh whey oh)
  So strike a pose on a Cadillac
• Beyoncé's cover of "Before I Let Go" adds a bit of this at the end ^note over the beat to Cameo's "Candy", which itself is often used for the electric slide..
• Bowser (a.k.a. Big Bow) is the lead singer in Big Bad Bosses for one of these songs, "The Raid".
• Well everybody's heard about the bird... (The Bird was originally a dance, and was indeed "the word.")
• The Bonzo Dog Doo Dah Band's "Do the Trouser Press, Baby (Yeahhhh!)"
• David Bowie mocks the obsession with fashion, fads and trends by using this this trope in "Fashion", describing "a brand new dance" that confuses the narrator and makes its participants look silly.
• The Bump is a dance that has you use your butt to bump someone else's butt on every other beat of a song. Using your hips also count. Even after the dance craze passed, bumping butts or hips is still a popular dance move to this day, rhythmically or not.
• Several line-dance Country Music songs in The '90s invoked this. The trope was started by Brooks & Dunn's "Boot Scootin' Boogie", but other examples include "Watermelon Crawl" by Tracy Byrd, "Any Man of Mine" by Shania Twain, and "Baby Likes to Rock It" by The Tractors.
• The Cabbage Patch. Actually there were two competing versions of the Cabbage Patch: One came from the West Coast via the World Class Wreckin' Cru (featuring a pre-N.W.A Dr. Dre), and the other originated in Miami with a single from Gucci Crew II.
• Cab Calloway: "The Calloway Boogie"
• "Caramelldansen" is pure this (though the dance described in the lyrics has nothing in common with the "dance" from the looped video clip that made it popular). Translated, it goes something like this:
  Dance with us
  Clap your hands
  Do like we do
  Take some steps to the left
  Listen and learn
  Don't miss the chance
  Now we're here with
  The Caramell Dance!
• Speaking of the Bop, an entire album of songs dedicated to that dance was recorded by, of all people, Ray Conniff, in a rock-and-roll style very much unlike the easy listening style he is usually associated with. The album, Do the Bop, came with an instruction booklet and featured instrumental songs named after the different steps of the Bop. It was the brainchild of a Columbia Records sales executive and ended up flopping because it didn't feature Conniff's usual sound; Conniff effectively disowned it afterwards.
• The Cramps usually had one of these on every album, including "Surfin' Dead", "Alligator Stomp", "Cramp Stomp", "The Crusher", and others. In most of them, everyone's dead by the final verse (but still dancing).
• The Cupid Shuffle. To the right! To the right! To the right! To the right!
• Another subversion is "At the Hop" by Danny and the Juniors, which simply talks about "a dance sensation that's sweeping the nation at the hop!", although a number of different dance moves are mentioned throughout the song. The song was originally written as "Do the Bop", but Dick Clark suggested to the songwriters that they rewrite the song since the Bop craze was dying out at the time.
• Digital Underground: "The Humpty Dance is your chance to do the hump!"
• The Dismemberment Plan's "Do the Standing Still", which uses the lyrical format of a typical dance sensation song to satirize how non-demonstrative indie rock audiences often are:
  Oh whoa-oh, well it's a sensation
  Across the entire nation
  Oh whoa-oh, a hundred million kids
  All dancing in suspended animation
• DJ Casper's "Cha Cha Slide".
• Dr. Hook and the Medicine Show had a song called "Levitate". It started out like it was trying to teach a dance, and then continued to lifting both feet off the ground and crossing your legs in midair.
• Another parody is Dr. Macdoo's "Macahula Dance":
  Grab your partner by the toe
  Shake your legs like an eskimo
  Then you'll start to jump to the beat
  Boogie-woogie down with your funky feet
  Stick your fingers up your partner’s nose
  Twist and shout like an angry cow
  Then you'll move with a swinga-linga-ling
  Doing the Highland fling
  Plus another set of nonsensical instructions.
• Eels' "Going Fetal" is a pretty sardonic parody: According to the lyrics, the latest dance craze is the Troubled Fetal Position.
• Another parody is "The Toxic Waltz" by Exodus, in which the dance is just violent moshing. Good friendly violent fun in store for all!
• Fats Domino's "Dance With Mr. Domino" was about the "Domino Twist."
• "The Compromise" by the Format satirizes this by describing a dance whose steps are "Throw your partner behind a desk, where they'll do absolutely nothing so it's your job to dance and smile". It's a retaliation against the record company, who asked them to write a hit (hence "The Compromise").
• Sort of parodied by The Goodies in "The Funky Gibbon"...
  We're The Goodies, how d'you do?
  Weve just been down to the zoo,
  Saw a monkey in a cage,
  Doin' a dance that could be the rage!
• Marcia Griffiths's "Electric Slide".
• One of the oldest examples if extremely simplistic — the Hokey Pokey.
  You put your left leg in, your left leg out...
• Hüsker Dü's "Do the Bee."
• It's officially called "Peewee's Dance", but Joeski Love actually came up with a dance called The Pee Wee Herman. No Celebrities Were Harmed, obviously.
  Just swing your hands up to the front
  And if you can't hear the music, say "Huh? What?"
  As you're doin' your dance, you might hurt your back
  Just look at the crowd, and say "I Meant to Do That!"
• Older Than Television: The Ragtime Dance by Scott Joplin. Good luck finding a version with the lyrics, though.
• Originating from Belgium (though also heard on dancefloors in Holland), there is the "Kabouterdans" (leprechaun dance).
  "Draai een keer in het rond, stamp met je voeten op de grond, zwaai je armen in de lucht, ga nu zitten met een zucht, stap nu rond als een gans, zo gaat de kabouterdans." (Turn around once, stamp your feet on the floor, wave your arms in the air, sit down with a sigh, walk around like a goose, that's the leprechaun dance)
• Kero Kero Bonito's "Sneaker Dance" was released to promote a streetwear/sneaker clothing line, and spends a little more time describing its mascots than the dance, but does include dance steps that are "designed to destroy sneakers" (because, as the lyrics claim, "our shoes like exercise", and "a true blue sneaker fan ain't scared of no scratch"):
  So stomp, stomp, stomp your feet
  Don't hold back, just ignore the beat
  Jump, jump, jump really high
  Letting those laces fly
• Kid 'N Play's "Do the Kid 'N Play Kickstep" instructed listeners on how to do the duo's signature kickstep routine, though the dance itself was already popularized in their music videos for "Do This My Way", "Gittin' Funky", and "Rollin' With Kid 'N Play".
• "The Crunge" by Led Zeppelin is another parody of this style of song, influenced by James Brown, but with an undanceable, oddly-timed rhythm.
• "The Vatican Rag" by Tom Lehrer, from the album That Was the Year That Was, is another satirical example, inspired by the Catholic Church's efforts to modernize.
  First you get down on your knees
  Fiddle with your rosaries
  Bow your head with great respect
  And genuflect, genuflect, genuflect!
• Parodied in Lemon Demon's "Dance Like an Idiot"
  Put your hands on your knees, and hobble to the right
  Then do a three-sixty with your eyes shut tight
  While you're dizzy, get busy and pretend you're a mime
  Then make whiny noises, and clap five times
  Hold out your arms, start running in place
  Try to do the moonwalk, and fall on your face
  Get up and stomp around like a big fat lummox
  Then jump out the window with your hands on your buttocks.
• The Lonely Island:
  • Parodied with "The Creep", a dance specifically designed to make one look like, well, a creep.
  • And in Lonely Island's "Go Kindergarten", which starts with dance moves like "shake that ass", proceeds with "punch your best friend" and ends up with, well,
    Build a school, burn it down
    Get on the floor and do it now
    Fuck a house, eat a shoe,
    all because we told you to!
• "Baila en tu cuerpo alegría, Macarena, que tu cuerpo es pa' dar alegría, cosa buena..." ^note though the lyrics themselves have nothing to do with promoting or describing an actual dance.
• One of MAD Magazine's early 1960s parody albums featured a track about a dance called "The Pretzel", whose moves were pretty much impossible to do without dislocating a few limbs:
  Throw an arm around the neck!
  The other one under your leg!
  Cross your feet on the beat
  Let's do the Pretzel!
  
  Take a toe in your hand!
  Double up the other knee!
  Put a thumb in your toes
  Let's do the Pretzel!
  
  (and so on)
• "Mambo Number Five" by Pérez Prado was turned into this when it was covered by Lou Bega.
  Jump up and down and move it all around,
  Shake your head to the sound, put your hands on the ground.
  Take one step left and one step right,
  One to the front and one to the side.
  Clap your hands once and clap your hands twice
  And if it look like this then you're doing it right.
• MC Frontalot has the "Margaret Thatcher" from his song "Wallflowers", which describes exactly the dorky dance that would be performed by an awkward geek with no idea how to dance. Notable for taking "vague steps" up a notch — after all, if it's an awkward nerd dance, you're not supposed to know what you're doing.
  Step One:
  Wiggle, wobble, wriggle,
  coddle your young,
  intensify your ennui,
  then before you get done,
  put your left foot over to the left if you dare,
  then pretend you got scared,
  then point at your hair.
• Van McCoy's The Hustle is a subversion, since it's just an instrumental with occasional shouts of "Do the Hustle!".
• The Moffats have "The Caterpillar Crawl".
• Just some songs from The New '10s:
  • Teach me how to dougie, teach me, teach me how to dougie.
  • Party rock is in the house tonight...
    Everybody just have a good time
    And even when you lose your mind
    We just wanna see ya...
    ...Shake that.
    Everyday I'm shufflin'...
  • PSY's "Gangnam Style!"
  • Can you do the Harlem Shake?:
    CON LOS TERRORISTAS!!!
    wub-wub-wub-wub-wub wub-wub-wub-wub-wub wub-wub-wub-wub
    • That said, the sensation that spread doesn't really resemble the dance done in Harlem.
  • Twerking.
  • The NaeNae dance from Silentó's "Watch Me (Whip/Nae Nae)".
  • Zay Hilfigerrr and Zayion McCall's "Juju Juju On The Beat" associated dance
  • The "Hit the Quan" dance from the titular song by iLoveMemphis
• "The Crusher", previously mentioned among songs by The Cramps, was originally by obscure '60s garage rock group The Novas, who used Harsh Vocals to fit with the wrestling-themed "dance" of the title: the only two moves given for "the crusher" itself are "take your fist and put it on your waist" and "squeeze your partner's head 'til she's blue in the face", and the listener is also repeatedly urged to "do the hammerlock" and the presumably self-explanatory "eye-gouge".
• Outasight has "The Boogie", which says that the "whole building goin' crazy" and that "nobody standin' still".
• Extremely popular in pop music from the mid-1950's to the early 1960s:
  • "The Loco-Motion" by Little Eva.
  • The Twist — the reason why this one was so much popular, even with the adults, was because it was very simple to learn unlike some dance numbers that either required one to see it being done by someone else (because the lyrics didn't tell you how to do it) or required one to grow a third leg or something to do properly.
  • Cameo-Parkway Records were especially known for their "dance craze" records. Interestingly, the staff songwriters who came up with these actually researched which dances were getting popular and wrote their songs about those instead of inventing them wholesale. A few notable examples of their input:
    • Besides "The Twist", Chubby Checker also did "Limbo Rock", "The Fly", "Pony Time", "The Hucklebuck", and many others.
    • Dee Dee Sharp had "Mashed Potato Time" and "Do the Bird", as well as a duet with Chubby Checker on "Slow Twistin'"
    • The Dovells did "Bristol Stomp", "Do the New Continental", "The Jitterbug" and more.
  • "The Monster Mash" by Bobby "Boris" Pickett. It even describes it within the song itself, noting that Dracula was upset, wondering "Whatever happened to my Translyvania Twist?" As the song explains - "It's now the Mash! It's now the Monster Mash. It caught on in a flash..."
  • "Hippy Hippy Shake", originally by Chan Romero, but better known as by The Swingin' Blue Jeans.
  • "The Jerk" by the Larks, which inspired "Come On, Do the Jerk" by The Miracles and "Cool Jerk" by The Capitols.
  • Mickey's Monkey (also just called "the Monkey")by Smokey Robinson and the Miracles.
  • The Swim goes with Bobby Freeman's "C'mon and Swim".
• Radio Birdman's "Do The Pop" doesn't actually mention any specific moves beyond a possible reference to stage-diving, but it does include Shout Outs to The Stooges (as well as MC5), so presumably they just want you to dance to the song like the Stooges' singer Iggy Pop would (very energetically, and possibly without a shirt).
• Similarly but more scatologically parodied by Rappy McRapperson's "Lick Your Own Butthole Party Dance" which is about exactly what you think it is.
• Before the Velvet Underground came about, Lou Reed wrote a version of these called "The Ostrich" featuring a ridiculous dance that involved people stepping on other people's heads.
• "Stand" by REM might be a parody as well: "Stand in the place where you live / now face north / think about direction, wonder why you have it / now stand in the place where you work / now face west / &c." Oddly predated by 15 years with an identically titled song by Belgian New Wave band The Employees, which had the same lyrical premise.
• The Replacements' "Mr. Whirly"
• Rednex's "Cotton Eye Joe".
• "Do the Strand" by Roxy Music. There are almost no instructions on how to do it in the lyrics, so it's possible it's just a long reference to other songs of this trope.
• Parodied in this Songs to Wear Pants To song.
• A slew of awkwardly titled rap-dance sensation songs were released after the success of the Soulja Boy, with varied amounts of success:
  • The Stanky Legg
  • The Cat Daddy
  • The Dougie (discussed in TWO songs)
  • Lean Like a Cholo
  • Juju on that Beat
  • Hit the Quan
• Steppenwolf sang about the "Hippo Stomp."
• Rufus Thomas was prolific in this field, many of his records are about his new dances and how to do them including "Do the Funky Chicken", "(Do the) Push and Pull", "The Breakdown", "Do the Funky Penguin" and "Itch and Scratch".^note That's just a selection of his releases from 1969 to 1972.
• "Do the Reggay" by Toots & The Maytals. Possibly the most successful one of all, since instead of popularizing a dance, it wound up naming a genre of music (with a minor change in spelling).
• "The Wilbury Twist" by The Traveling Wilburys invites the dancer to, among other things, fall on his ass, put his teeth in a glass, and put his blindfold on so his friends can get away from him ("Could be years before you're missed!").
• Tropical music tends to spawn a lot of these. Some of them:
  • Wilfrido Vargas had "El baile del perrito" ("The dance of the puppy"). Although the song itself didn't describe the steps, the videoclip plenty of showed (and the moves were pretty risqué).
    • He later tried to repeat the success with another song. "Por la plata baila el mono/¿y cómo es que baila el mono? ¡así!"
  • La Bomba, with versions in every country.
  • Argentinian group El Simbolo had almost every song they released to be one of these, but their most popular one is the one where they command you to dance raising the hands, moving the waist, with a sexy movement...
  • DALE MARACA!
  • Its Spiritual Predecesor "Dale Cintura"
  • Theorically, a good Hora Loca mix should be made of these or being one of these itself.
• Even the 2 Live Crew made their own dance, called "Throw The D."^note "D" in this case stands for "Dick." (What, you were expecting something G-rated?)
  It's all in the hips, so go berserk and let that dick do the work!
• Two of Unk's biggest (and only) hits were these: "Waik it Out" and "2 Step", with the latter even referencing the former.
  Now take two steeeeeeps — to the left
  Now take two steeeeeeps — to the right
  Now bring it back, bring it back — yeah I made y'all "Walk it Out"
  Ev'rybody 2 Steppin, now we finna turn it out
• Usher had "U-Turn" from his 8701 album:

  Put your hands up
  Bend your knees
  Bounce around in a circle
  Get down with me
  Come on, come on (it ain't hard to learn)
  Come on, come on (it's called the U Turn)

• Village People's "YMCA". This one is unique in that the dance was invented after the song came out, by fans rather than the band itself.
• Tom Waits' "The Metropolitan Glide". Are you ready?
• Was (Not Was): "Open the door, get on the floor, everybody walk the dinosaur."

Music Videos

• Though the song itself does not seem to be about one, Foals have one present in the "Inhaler" music video.

Pro Wrestling

• Chikara derivative Wrestling Is Art, WOW Puerto Rico, Shine, TNA, WWE and even Hungarian Championship Wrestling all contracted The Harlem Shake, usually starting with one wrestler or tag team doing so with others trying to make sense of it then cutting to the half the roster doing so (or the entire arena in Impact's case). Jervis Cottonbelly, Su Yung, El Local and La Rosa Negra among those who decided not to call in sick, Mike Quackenbush, Colt Cabana, Titus O'Neill, Amazing Kong and James Storm among the later afflicted. Yung seemed to have something resembling the original strain, the rest had far less virulent infections.
• Super Wrong of Kaiju Big Battel is the dance sensation sweeping across the nation.
• WWE accidentally brought on its own in the form of Fandangoing. Vince McMahon loves giving people dancing gimmicks. Often to the popular detriment of the poor performer saddled with it. Brodus Clay, Rikishi, his friends Too Cool and Matt Bloom all had a dancing gimmick at one time.

Puppet Shows

• The song "The Dino Dance" from the Barney & Friends franchise.
• In Bear in the Big Blue House, the mice at Tutter's school all do the "Mumble Mambo," but Tutter is uncomfortable with it and can't seem to get into it.
• On "Do the Roo" from The Book of Pooh, Roo creates one with the help of his mama Kanga called "The Roo," which can basically be done any way you want. "Any which way, throw out your compass! Swing your partner, do a wild rompus! How you move is up to you, when you're doin' the Roo!"
• Donkey Hodie: "Dancing Under The Golden Rainbow" has Donkey and Panda sing about some of the steps for doing the dance in the song.
• "The Chicken Song" from Spitting Image parodies this:
  Hold a chicken in the air
  Stick a deckchair up your nose
  Buy a jumbo jet
  And then bury all your clothes
  Paint your left knee green
  Then extract your wisdom teeth
  Form a string quartet
  And pretend your name is Keith

Radio

• I'm Sorry, I'll Read That Again enjoyed doing this on occasion. One of the more memorable ones was the "Gibbon Stuffing" song. It was Exactly What It Says on the Tin.

Theatre

• Countless 1920s Broadway musicals had a Dance Sensation, e.g. "The Monkey-Doodle-Doo" in The Cocoanuts (which made it into the movie version), "Long Island Low-Down" in Animal Crackers (which did not appear in the movie) and "The Varsity Drag" in Good News. By far the most popular, though, was "Charleston," a Breakaway Pop Hit from the black musical Runnin' Wild (1923).
• "Off-Time" from Ain't Misbehavin'. Like the title song, this was originally used in the 1929 revue Hot Chocolates.
• Cole Porter's "Heaven Hop," last seen as a musical stowaway in revivals of Anything Goes.
• "The Holiday Hop" from Carols for a Cure: Broadway's Greatest Gifts, Volume 5, performed by the cast of 42nd Street.
• Evil Dead: The Musical tried to do this with "Do the Necronomicon".
• "The Pussy Foot" from Goldilocks has a somewhat catchy tune but awful lyrics.
• Gilbert and Sullivan offer "Dance a Cachucha" in The Gondoliers. The cachucha actually was a dance sensation, sixty or so years earlier.
• "Yankee Doodle Rhythm" from the 1927 version of Strike Up the Band.
• "Wrong Note Rag" from Wonderful Town, supposed to be like a pre-World War I vaudeville act.
• Played with in Young Frankenstein with "The Transylvania Mania" because they're trying to distract the townspeople from the Monster's sounds and so making it up on the spot. The lyrics consist of contrived rhyming claims on how much fun it is (but purposefully for parody)
  So join the fun, lets all be zany-a
  Even Liths in Lithuania love it, it's the latest rage.
  Lose the blues and don't complain-ia
  hit the dance floor feel no pain-ia
  Love it! Do the Transylvania mania!
• "Do the New York" from Ziegfeld Follies of 1931.
• "The Gazooka" from the revue Ziegfeld Follies of 1936 was an Affectionate Parody of the Dance Sensation, especially the Astaire/Rogers kind. The lyrics explain that "first you take a step, and then you take another, and then you take another," and then you ought to buy a copy of the sheet music.

Video Games

• DanceDanceRevolution has a song called The 7 Jump. Unfortunately the lyrics seem to assume that you're watching the music video to the song so you'd never learn how to do it just from hearing it. Hilariously, the lyrics comment about how easy it is to do.
• Hypnospace Outlaw has "The Mushroom Hop" by Dripp Boy. The lyrics don't describe the dance, but the page where the song plays is plastered with animated images of a hopping mushroom. The song is supposedly part of the new "Fungus Scene" genre of music, but it doesn't sound anything like the other songs in the genre aside from some dripping sound effects.

Web Animation

• ASDF Movie used it for one gag — "EVERYBODY DO THE FLOP!" (thud). It became so popular it actually spawned a 10-minute version and an official music video.

Western Animation

• The Archie Show does this Once an Episode. First there is a teaser before the commercial break, then afterwards, the dance (with an accompanying song) would be shown in full before going to the actual song of the week^note "We've learned a new dance, now let's dance it to a brand new song."
• The Boondocks: Sgt. Gudda is a fifteen year old rapper with a hit song and dance called "Crack Dat Artichoke".
• The ChalkZone song "Mumbo Jumbo Jump": "No step is wrong, and every step is right!"
  Oh! Bounce a little, boing a little, give a little shake
  Wriggle and a jiggle like a little earthquake
  Now you're doing the Mumbo Jumbo Jump!
  Boinging and a-bouncing all over the place
  Turn a little, twist a little, make a funny face
  Now you're doing the Mumbo Jumbo Jump!
• The Flintstones had "The Twitch", created by a singer after an allergic reaction to pickled dodo eggs. Of course, there were also a few Accidental Dance Crazes.
• Buzzbee, the main character of The Hive creates one in "Dancing Bee".
• "The Michigan Rag", from the Looney Tunes short "One Froggy Evening". It was the only original song written for the short.
• My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic: As typical of country music, "Raise This Barn" describes some dance moves, although the main gist of the lyrics is about... raising the barn.
  Bow to your partner, circle right
  Get down if you're scared of heights
  Forward back and twirl around
  That barn's gonna be the best in town!
• From the Peanuts special, It's Flashbeagle, Charlie Brown!:
  When you're doing the Pig-Pen hoe down
  You gotta have a caller you can trust
  'Cause when Pig-Pen does the hoe down
  He really kicks up some dust
• The Schmeerskahoven in Pinky and the Brain stimulated every pressure point on the body during the dance, allowing the dancer to be completely brainwashed.
• The Rick and Morty Season 1 finale had "The Rick Dance". According to the creator commentary, it was meant to be a parody that nobody got. It isn't easy to tell if they meant it all along.
• Schoolhouse Rock!: "There's a great new craze that's sweeping the nation! Come on! Do the Circulation!"
• The Simpsons with "Do the Bartman". Fun fact: Michael Jackson co-wrote the song.
• SpongeBob SquarePants:
  • Kids at the prom doing "The Sponge". Spongebob pulls it off effortlessly, doing such moves as twisting up his limbs, bouncing all over the place and becoming Pearl's basketball (which she promptly shoots into the gym hoop with a neat swish). The fish at the prom... well, they tried.
  • In another episode, Patrick wins a dance contest after rolling around because of a cramp. (He won by default, as the only dancer who did his own dancing.) This is followed by a fake commercial for "The Cramp".
  • In "The Lost Mattress", when Mr. Krabs throws his back out opening the front door to the Krusty Krab and SpongeBob asks if he's okay, he sarcastically retorts "I'm just doubled over in pain, fightin' back tears in me eyes because it's a new dance craze!"
• Super Mario Bros.:
  • The Super Mario Bros. Super Show!'s ending credits instructed viewers on how to "Do the Mario." For those unfamiliar, you swing your arms from side to side, take one step, and then again. The Mario is just running. Which is a reference to Mario's hypnotic walk cycle in the original Super Mario Bros..
  • This happens twice in The Adventures of Super Mario Bros. 3: One segment had a song about doing "the Frog", while the other had one as part of a plot point; both the song and segment are called "Do the Koopa".
• Teen Titans Go! has "The Pee-Pee Dance", which the other Titans use to help Robin deal with his plight. It's implied in the lyrics that it didn't work.

Real Life

• Any square/line/generally country dance. See Bugs Bunny in "Hillbilly Hare" for a good idea.
• The "Hora Loca" costume in Latin American parties, basically the people dancing to a remix.

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That's it for now! Until next time, everybody, DO THE MARIO!

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