About

Martha Was An Average Dog or Martha Speaks Theme Song refers to a series of memes based on the theme song to the 2008 PBS cartoon Martha Speaks, often playing off the opening lyrics "Martha was an average dog." A remix of the theme became popularized in lip dubs and skits on TikTok in mid-2020. In early 2022, the clip of the theme song became prevalent in video edits as an exploitable.

Origin

On September 1st, 2008, Martha Speaks, a Canadian children's cartoon about a dog that eats some alphabet soup and can speak afterward (meant to teach kids about grammar and language), premiered on PBS. The theme song to the show explains Martha's origin after the opening line "Martha was an average dog." It was uploaded to YouTube on the day of its premiere, gaining over 3.7 million views in 14 years (shown below).

Martha was an average dog
She went- Woof!
And- Woof!
And- Grrr!
When she ate some alphabet soup, then what happened was bizarre

Spread

On May 30th, 2020, TikToker^[1] @flarpgurl posted a lip-dub video set to an original sound consisting of the opening few lines of the Martha Speaks theme remixed with aggressive growling replacing the barks in the theme, gaining over 509,000 views in just under two years. The original sound^[2] became notably popularized in the following months, inspiring over 24,500 videos by January 2022 (notable examples shown below).

On June 2nd, YouTuber Communist Creeper posted an edit of the theme song adding a scene of Gumball from The Amazing World Of Gumball choking after the lyrics about Martha eating the soup, gaining over 44,400 views in roughly the same span of time (shown below).

On August 22nd, 2021, YouTuber LickyLick posted an edit of the theme song where Martha's neck stretches across the screen, gaining over 617,000 views in five months (shown below, left). On January 22nd, 2022, YouTuber Maniraptavia posted an edit adding a mushroom cloud explosion to the backend of the video, gaining over 32,000 views in four days (shown below, right).

Maniraptavia posted 17 variations on the meme between January 22nd and 26th, the most viewed gaining over 224,000 views in three days (shown below).

On January 25th, 2022, YouTuber Yoda's Meme Hut posted a version of the video replacing various aspects with Clash Royale clips and sounds, gaining over 51,000 views in a day (shown below).

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References