Hooked On a Feeling

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About

"Hooked On a Feeling" is a song written by Mark James and originally performed by B.J. Thomas, though a cover version by Swedish rock band Blue Swede including an "Ooga-Chaka-Ooga-Ooga" chanted introduction by male voices became the most popular version of the song. The song was used in the Dancing Baby viral video, one of the earliest memes of all time. Additionally, "Hooked On a Feeling" was used as a track in numerous video and musical remix memes in the 2010s, including popular Trumpet Boy and Bart Hits Homer With a Chair edits.

Origin

"Hooked On a Feeling" was written by Mark James and originally performed by B.J. Thomas. The original was released on October 29th, 1968^[1] (shown below).

The most popular version of the song is a cover by Swedish rock band Blue Swede, released in February of 1974 (shown below). The "Ooga-Chaka" introduction was inspired by a 1971 cover of the song by Jonathan King. The song peaked at number 1 on the US Billboard Hot 100.

Spread

The song became prominent online following the 1996 spread of the "Dancing Baby" video, which used the song. The 2006 upload of the video gained over 4 million views (shown below). "Dancing Baby" was later used in an episode of television's Ally McBeal, bringing the meme and song national attention (shown below, right).

The song gained further national attention when it was included in the Guardians of the Galaxy soundtrack.^[2] After this surge in popularity, it began seeing use in remix memes where it was used as the soundtrack in various video edits. For example, a Trumpet Boy meme featuring the song posted to YouTube by Agent J on May 1st, 2018 gained over 1.6 million views (shown below, left). Twitter user @jhbteam posted a Bart Hits Homer With a Chair edit on June 16th, 2018,^[3] that gained over 23,000 retweets and 45,000 likes (YouTube embed shown below, right).

On October 13th, 2018, Twitter user @B_Azevedo24 posted a video where he and a friend manipulated syrup bottles to appear as though they were singing the song, gaining over 10 million views, 248,000 retweets, and 748,000 likes (shown below).

Me and Matt are no longer allowed in IHOP</a> <a href="https://t.co/b2PbEm6gya">pic.twitter.com/b2PbEm6gya</a></p>— Blake Azevedo (B_Azevedo24) October 13, 2018