About

Hammer (Japanese: ハンマー)refers to a style of MAD videos that remix the melody of Hammer that is the item appearing on Nintendo's video games.

Origin

The first appearance of the "Hammer" melody was the popular 8-bit arcade game, Donkey Kong, where it was the theme that played when Mario (who was only known as "Jumpman" at the time) in 1986. It is based on the "Charging" trumpet tune used in military battles.

This song has been also reused in the 1994 Game Boy game Donkey Kong, as well as the Super Smash Brothers series (seen below) since late 1990s.

The Hammer Man

According to Nico Nico Pedia^[1], an internet encyclopedia for the Japanese video sharing service Nico Nico Douga (NND), the Super Smash Bros. version of this too simple and short tune was led to a big trend on NND by the single MAD creator who was later called "The Hammer Man" (ハンマーの人).^[2]

He was one of the first NND users who began introducing this song that was uploaded to NND in November 15th, 2008 and entitled "Hammer State" (Japanese : ハンマー状態)^[3] to their works in January 2009. His MAD video "Hammer of Knights", featuring the popular soundtrack from Touhou project series Night of Kinights, was posted to NND in 11th of that month.^[4] He left a short comment in the video's description "I made an effort especially in the last part.". Believed his comment, every viewer was watching this video while expect to his "effort". But…

Its too simple quality and an unexpected result of his effort (just once modulation) was recieved as a troll, and nobody cared about this video anymore.

However, he continued posting Hammer MAD videos in the 11th of every month, and the quality of his videos had grown over time. People even who mocked at him at the beginning were gradually impressed to his growing.

• 02-11-2009 : Hammer Zone (Hammer x RED_ZONE)^[5]
• 03-11-2009 : Hammer's Perfect Making Effort Class (Hammer x Cirno's Perfect Math Class)^[6]
• 04-11-2009 : Hammer Goose (Hammer x Snow Goose)^[7]

And May 11th, 2009, he posted "Hammer of Knights" again with a short comment "This is the final, so I made an effort."^[8]

This last video packing all of his grow gave all viewer an inarticulate throb, and The Hammer Man became the legend.

Spread

The 11th of every month is Hammer Day

The retirement of the hammer man was very sad news, but what followed was the flood of Hammer MAD videos made by people inspired by the Hammer Man. They respect his style and always post their Hammer MAD videos to NND in the 11th of every month. Therefore, this day has been known as the Hammer Day (毎月11日はハンマーの日) since middle of 2009.^[9]

As of October 2011, the amount of videos that have been posted to NND in the Hammer day of every month is over 1700.^[10]

YouTube

The melody of Hammer was also imported to YouTube Poop Music Videos (YTPMVs) on YouTube similar to other popular soundtrack in MADs on NND. Though people outside Japan never know the legend of the Hammer Man, this melody have been a popular resource for parody videos by people who have been familar with it by many Nintendo's video games.

Notable Examples

External References

Editor’s Note: Registration is needed to browse the original videos listed in this section.