LazyTown

About

LazyTown was a musical children's television show promoting healthy lifestyles featuring costumed actors, puppetry and CGI animation. Clips and images of the show have been widely circulated online, spawning several related internet memes and video remixes.

Premise

In the show, the character Stephanie Meanswell (played by Julianna Rose Mauriello and Chloe Lang) inspires the citizens of the fictional LazyTown to stay active and healthy, and is know for her pink outfits and hair. The character Robbie Rotten (played by Stefan Karl Stefansson) plots and schemes to lure the citizens away from a healthy lifestyle. Additional notable characters include Sportacus, Mayor Meanswell, Ziggy, Trixie, Pixel and Stingy.

History

On August 16th, 2004, LazyTown was first broadcast on the children's television block Nick Jr. on the Nickelodeon channel. The show ran for two seasons, airing a total of 53 episodes, between 2004 and 2007. From 2013 to 2014, two additional seasons were broadcast.

LazyTown Extra

In 2008, the spin-off series LazyTown Extra was released in the United Kingdom on the CBeebies television station, which featured characters from LazyTown performing short sketches.

Online Presence

On October 14th, 2011, the /r/LazyTown^[2] subreddit was launched for discussions about the television show. On March 19th, 2012, the official LazyTown Facebook^[1] page was launched, which gathered upwards of 85,500 likes over the next five years. On August 24th, 2012, LazyTown head writer Mark Valenti participated in an "ask me anything" post on the /r/IAmA^[5] subreddit. On May 12th, 2013, a page for LazyTown was created on TV Tropes. On June 4th, a LazyTown-themed trollpasta was created on the Trollpasta Wiki.^[3] As of September 2016, the fanfiction database FanFiction.net has over 430 submissions under the LazyTown category.^[4]

Stefán Karl's Illness

In late September 2016, Icelandic news media began reporting that actor Stefan Karl was "seriously ill," and was in a hospital to remove a possibly malignant tumor.^[6][7] That month, video remixes and photoshops featuring Karl playing Robbie Rotten reached the front page of several subreddits, including /r/youtubehaiku,^[8] /r/Spongebros^[9] and /r/tf2^[10] (shown below). On September 28th, Redditor Catacomb82 submitted a post asking about the recent resurgence in LazyTown memes to /r/OutOfTheLoop,^[11] to which the top-voted comment noted news reports of Karl's recent illness.

Related Memes

Cooking by the Book

Cooking by the Book is a catchy song from the show that has been widely remixed online, most notably in a mashup with rapper Lil Jon's vocals from the 2004 rap song "Step You Game Up" by Snoop Dogg (shown below).

You are a Pirate!

You Are A Pirate is a song performed by Robbie Rotten in pirate character in an episode of LazyTown, which subsequently inspired the creation of numerous parodies and animations.

We Are Number One!

We Are Number One! is a song performed by Robbie Rotten. Online, the song has gained a spontaneous surge of parodies and mashups through Soundcloud and YouTube.

The Mine Song

The Mine Song is another song that used word replacement in a format similar to We Are Number One. This one uses a song sung by the character Stingy, who repeatedly says 'mine' and 'triagonal' throughout the song, leading it to be the subject of many memes.

Search Interest

External References