About

The Ol' Razzle Dazzle also known by the longer phrase 'Give Em' The Ol' Razzle Dazzle', refers to a catchphrase used in image macros highlighting images of various characters that seem to be performing a dance routine. Often the images depict the subject with one of their legs outstretched.

Origin

While the term 'razzle dazzle' has been coined since the 1950's,^[1] the most likely origin of the meme is from the award-winning 2002 musical film Chicago (a remake of the 1975 theater musical of the same name) where a song titled "Razzle Dazzle" featured bold, flashy dance sequences and the specific lyric, "Give em' the ol' razzle dazzle."^[2]

Spread

The phrase began seeing use particularly on photographs of animals who appear to be dancing in the early 2010s. One of the earliest known posts to use the phrase was posted to Funnyjunk^[3] on March 17th, 2010. It featured a cat photoshopped to appear as though it was wearing a hat and tap shoes (shown below).

In the ensuing years, the caption was added to a number of images that featured characters dancing. For example a popular Tumblr post that circulated in the fall of 2014 featuring a sad Pepe the Frog dancing had the caption, gaining over 167,000 notes (shown below, left).^[4] On September 5th, 2014, a version created in Madden Giferator was posted to Tumblr^[5] by user Cautionlazer and was used as the cover image in an Uproxx^[6] article on the meme (shown below, right).

The Razzle Dazzle Bird

The Razzle Dazzle Bird refers to an image of a bird stretching its leg out towards a body of water. It has been used in an image macro series in which the bird and the water are labeled different things. The picture gained mainstream attention on July 18th, 2017, Twitter user @catesish posted the image to Twitter and captioned it "the ol razzle dazzle", gaining over 85,000 retweets and 218,000 likes (shown below).

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References