Origin

René La Taupe (Rene the mole) s a virtual singing character created in 2009 by Fox Mobile Group studios.^[1] The character, which is in fact a groundhog, was made famous through a music for mobile phone and a music video available on the Internet. The character was created to mediate ringtones on behalf of Jamster, a distributor of content for mobile phones that had already produced Crazy Frog. (Source : Wikipedia)

René la Taupe started by the ringtone "Merde" (Shit). The single reached number 30 in Germany and remained nine weeks on the charts (it was) the most downloaded song of 2009 on the German version ).

The meme really started in France, where the Single "Mignon, Mignon" had a huge success . The song was about an animal who have a chubby look which make it adorable. Its success of the single generated an increase of the ringtone sales, becoming one of the most downloaded of the middle of 2010. The video on youtube was viewed more than 5 million times in two months. A special version, called "Mauvais, Mauvais" (Bad Bad) was released. It was about the France Team Failure at the Soccer World Cup.

René la Taupe made some others songs which didn't topped the impact of "Mignon Mignon"

Original video of "Mignon Mignon"

Original video of "Scheiße, ich liebe dich" (Cannot embed it)

Parodies

"Mauvais Mauvais", the parody for the Soccer World Cup 2010 (extract):

Parody by the french humorist Fabrice Eboué :

A lot of people disliked this meme very much :

This one too :

WIth the Angry German Kid :

Some parodies of the well-known Tv Show "Les Guignols ", They make fun of the politic François Bayrou : Part 1

Part 2

Part3

Omar & Fred Version

Rip-off rumor

An accordeonist from Britain called Serge Gamany claimed that "Mignon Mignon" is a rip-off of one of his song (called "Le parc de Mougins" ) created ten years ago. However, Fox Mobile answered by saying the song was inspired by the German nursery rhyme "Drei Chinesen mit dem Kontrabass'"