Animutation

Editor’s Disclaimer: If you suffer from epilepsy or any related conditions, it is advised not to watch these videos as they’re known to trigger such medical conditions.

About

A portmanteau of “animation” & “mutation”, Animutation is a vast array of pop culture references thrown together to create a humorous and often shabby-looking video. Generally, the animation is set to foreign or gibberish music that lends to the structured randomness of the video, the creator occasionally giving “misheard” English subtitles (known as soramimis) for the video a la Phonetic Translations.

Also known as Fanimutations, these videos often employ similar characters, pictures, gimmicks or techniques. See Recurring Animutation Characters below for more information.

Origin

Neil Cicierega, an internet celebrity also famous for creating Ultimate Showdown of Ultimate Destiny and a web series known as Potter Puppet Pals, created a low-quality flash known as The Japanese Pokerap which was released on June 14, 2001 while he was only 13 years of age. As stated by FanimutationWiki, this was the ever first Animutation.

The original Japanese Pokerap flash can be found on Neil’s website as well as on Newgrounds.

The song used in the clip is a rap song sung by Pokemon rap group, Suzukisan, known as Can You Name All the Pokemon? (ポケモン言えるかな？ Pokemon Ierukana?).

Hatten är din (the hat is yours!)

Even though “The Japanese Pokerap” is established as the ever first Animutation, several fans of the Animutation genre of flash animation believe that Hatten är din can be considered as the real first Animutation seeing as it bears the necessary qualities of an Animutation and it precedes “The Japanese Pokerap” by about a year.

It is proven, though, that the reason for the similarities is because Neil took inspiration from the flash movie itself for his Animutation videos. Neil says so himself in the LemonDemon.com forums (which unfortunately cannot be entered anymore due to an error).

Hyakugojyuuichi!!!

Hyakugojyuuichi!!! is Neil Cicierega’s most famous Animutation. It established the popularity of several recurring Animutation characters (i.e. Jay Jay the Jet Plane, Colin Mochrie, Pee-Wee Herman, and Harry Potter).

Its video can be found at the top of this article. It can also be found on Neil’s site, Newgrounds, and Albino Blacksheep.

As stated in the FanimutationWiki, the Animutation was released on May 22, 2001.

The song was the first season ending theme of the Japanese version of the children’s anime show, Pokemon, known as One Hundred Fifty-One (百五十一 Hyakugojûichi). This was a reference to the original number of Pokemon that were created at the time (Bulbasaur to Mew AKA The Kanto Pokedex Numbers).

Fanimutations

Currently, the FanimutationWiki holds a large list of different videos, many of which exist on Newgrounds, Animutation Portal, YouTube, and Albino Blacksheep. Fanimutations are generally created with flash, and though many creators have uploaded versions of the videos to YouTube, they retain a higher quality in their original format.

Notable Fanimutations

French Erotic Film

We Drink Ritalin

Irrational Exuberance

Earth vs. Funk

Chocolate Niblet Beans

Other Fanimutations

The sequel to “French Erotic Film”, Plan 9 from Underpants

Suzukisan

Holy Shit! Ninjas!!!

Super Smash Bros. Animutation

Kung Fu Phil and the Death Cookie

Copyright Infringement

Because of legal issues concerning some pop culture characters being featured in Animutations, some of the videos had to be edited so as to be posted on YouTube again.

One notable example is an Animutation known as JamezBond. After Randy Costan filed a copyright claim against using his image in videos not his, the creator of the Animutation, Dwedit, replaced Peter Pan Guy with a green silhouette version of the man with text below him that reads “DMCA Violation”.

Recurring Animutation Characters

Some popularly known people and fictional characters often recur in several Animutations. This list contains the most notable of those characters.

Real People

• Adolf Hitler
• Alex Chiu
• Bill Gates
• Colin Mochrie (The staple Animutation character)
• George W. Bush
• Matthew Lesko
• Michael Jackson
• Mr. T

Fictional Characters

• Dancing Banana
• Darth Vader
• Domo-kun
• Harry Potter
• Hello Kitty
• Homer Simpson
• Jay Jay the Jet Plane
• Mario
• Mink
• Pac-Man
• Pee-wee Herman
• Pikachu
• Ronald McDonald
• Santa Claus
• Sonic the Hedgehog
• Spongebob Squarepants
• Zippy

Original Characters

• A plastic statue of Jesus, more commonly referred to as “Jesus H. Christ”