Exactly 20 years and 20 minutes ago, this happened.
Should you care to relive the glory, as of course you should: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EIyixC9NsLI
Badgers : animated music video : MrWeebl

badger badger badger badger↓↓↓↓↓↓↓↓↓↓↓↓↓↓↓↓↓↓↓↓↓↓↓↓↓↓↓↓↓↓↓↓↓↓↓↓↓↓↓↓↓↓↓↓↓↓↓↓↓↓↓↓↓↓↓↓↓↓↓↓↓↓MrWeebl is a channel of fun and silliness, with songs and cartoons a...

YouTube

@Meyerweb
I must be one of the few people who never saw the original and only know of it from derivative works and citation
https://learn.adafruit.com/pyportal-animated-gif-display/convert-your-gif

Don't know how that could have happened given I was regularly visiting popular web aggregators around that time. I must have been going through some rough times back then -- oh yes that was it. I was still in academia!

Arcada Animated GIF Display

Animated GIFs are a staple of the Internet - and thanks to SAMD51's speedy chip and Arcada's display handling, we can show animated GIFs right from the onboard filesystem for keeping your favorite memes with you all the time even when the Internet is down!

Adafruit Learning System
@Meyerweb
It always makes me kind of sad that the original is gone. The original would randomly string the elements together and generate the graphics on your machine at just the right resolution from vector graphics originals. So you could watch it on a very non-ideal connection and it looked good and not like maybe the resolution isn't perfect. And it wouldn't have to buffer. It's very good there's a record but it feels strange it's a video of the thing and not the thing.
@aprilfollies

@Lacci The original SWF - if you dig up the URL from the depths of the Internet - is luckily archived on the Wayback Machine. https://web.archive.org/web/20030908192844/http://www.weebl.jolt.co.uk/misc/badger.swf

Unfortunately, Adobe killed Flash several years back now, so you'll either need to use a third-party player like Ruffle, or track down a patched Flash Player that still works...

Crabs : animated music video : MrWeebl

YouTube
@Meyerweb animated GIFs you can hear!
@Meyerweb i dont know whats more disappointing, the fact that the gif doesnt get to the snake or the fact that i sat here and watched it until the point where i knew the snake should appear,
@avie @Meyerweb i just right click the gif and enable show controls to figure out how long GIFs are
@EeveeEuphoria @Meyerweb i was too preoccupied with singing the song whilst watching.....
@Meyerweb I can hear this in my head. That and the hampster dance.
@wbrowar @Meyerweb Hamster Dance was a test page for IE 4 and 5. It was hilarious when the browser failed to animate it fast enough in early builds - 1 hamster out of sync was great!

@craz8 @Meyerweb oh, no way! I didn’t realize there was a purpose behind it other than it was one of the first things I remember that had animation and audio happening at the same time.

My friends and I all thought it was some other kid on the internet goofing around, just like we were.

@wbrowar @Meyerweb Ah, no, Microsoft didn't build the page for that, but they did use the page to make sure they could play it correctly - it was a challenge on late 90's hardware.

But then we had to spend a lot of time looking at it, and listening to the soundtrack.

@wbrowar @Meyerweb I may have to go back and revisit llama-llama-duck.

@Meyerweb
Younger people will never understand that very silly era of the Internet.

Hint: a lot of it was driven by limited bandwidth.

@tofugolem @Meyerweb my favorite internet era really
@darwinwoodka @Meyerweb
You're the man now, dog.

@darwinwoodka @Meyerweb

I cannot resist! We've been talking about it!

https://ualuealuealeuale.ytmnd.com/

Batman: ualuealuealeuale

This was never funny.

YTMND
@Meyerweb my brother showed this to my nine year old a few weeks back. All I've heard since that time is "badger badger badger badger mushroom mushroom"
@Meyerweb Snake? What’s happening? Snake? Snaaaaaake?!
@Meyerweb but whatever happened to Magical Trevor? He was ever so clever
@Meyerweb TWENTY YEARS?!!??!?

/me crawls into a coffin

@Meyerweb

I will now be singing this to myself all night until I fall asleep. Thanks 😅

@Meyerweb Mushroom, mushroom, my friend.
@Meyerweb in another lifetime when I worked for Geek Squad, I would run this overnight to test whether a computer would crash under normal use... and to annoy the morning crew. 😈

@Meyerweb Now I want to go dig up all the Weebl and Bob stuff.

And maybe Gonads and Strife.

@Meyerweb 20 years? Blimey.

That was at such an exciting time for the web. There was so much creativity out there.

@durbster @Meyerweb
Back before any of the major social media platforms had hoovered up everyone's attention; and blogs, web aggregators and email lists were how such creations were spread.

Most were still connecting to the Internet via dial-up. Wifi wasn't yet considered an essential resource.

@bornach @Meyerweb Yeah it was great. Nobody quite knew what to do with it all, so new ideas were springing up all the time.

I'm fairly sure I saw the badgers for the first time on b3ta.com. weebl was a regular contributor there.

@durbster @Meyerweb
He's still posting there decades later
https://b3ta.com/links/1608127
20 Years of Badgers

Posting on b3ta first as this is where it all started. hope you enjoy it.

B3ta
@durbster @Meyerweb

^This. I spent half my youth on New Grounds and Weebls-stuff. It was glorious to see what everyone would come up with. I miss it.
@Meyerweb 🎵 Badger badger badger badger badger badger badger badger badger badger badger badger mushroom mushroom 🎵

@Meyerweb And i still don't even need audio to hear that gif.

SNAKE!

@Meyerweb thanks for making me feel old....
@Meyerweb @intheseheels amazing! What’s Weebl up to these days? I’m sure I’d heard he was working in TV…
@witewulf @Meyerweb @intheseheels Still making content. He has a daily twitch stream at www.twitch.tv/mr_weebl where you can join in his creative shenanigans. He's on Mastodon under @weebl be sure to follow and tell him how much you loved him as a kid, he enjoys being made to feel really old.
@Gosunkugi @Meyerweb @intheseheels @weebl alas, I was far from being a kid even twenty years ago! 😬😂
@witewulf @Gosunkugi @Meyerweb @weebl I have a narwhal tattoo, and sing the song every single time I look at it. The scotch egg song is on constant repeat in my head. To mention but one! Thank you Weebl, you have an amazing mind!!
@intheseheels @witewulf @Meyerweb @weebl I'm cursed by the Fish Finger song. It's impossible to go into a supermarket now and not have it pop into my head. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1eTzPiGuCpw
Weebl's - Fish, Fish, Fish, Fish Fingers | Animated Music Video | Songs | Milkshake!

YouTube
@Gosunkugi @witewulf @Meyerweb @weebl curse... Blessing... Potato potato.
@intheseheels @Gosunkugi @Meyerweb @weebl mmmm...potato….jacket....cheese...beans....that's my lunch plans sorted🤤