About

Trenzinho Carreta Furacão refers to a group of costume characters who dance and do stunts around the streets of Ribeirão Preto (São Paulo) and other cities in Brazil. The group is part of a sightseeing truck (trenzinho da alegria), which is very common in small cities of Brazil, hired for city tours or party animation.

Origin

The group has gained notoriety on the internet after footage of their performance was posted on YouTube on January 27th, 2009, by user^[1]@TOMAlves. The video, titled "Foguete da Alegria – Spider-Man died," shows a dance performance featuring a man cosplayed as Batman, Spider-Man and a Brazilian clown named Fofão. The video amassed over 2 million views and 11,000 likes in 14 years.

The group is characterized by their dance style, which includes a mix of choreographies, samba, funk and twerking, as well as by their artless and somewhat creepy costumes which include apparently random and unrelated memorable characters, such as Mickey Mouse, Popeye, Ben 10, Captain America, Goku, an unnamed clown, and Fofão, a character from a Brazilian children's TV show canceled in 1986.

For some reason unknown, Fofão (shown below) is the standout leader of the dance group, as well as being the creepiest (some Brazilians reported being afraid of him as kids^[2]) and the one who does most of the stunts, of which the most famous is the wall run.

The dancers cosplaying the characters usually don't reveal their identities, which makes it impossible to tell who works for the group, whether they exchange costumes, or even if one particular video is either from the original Carreta Furacão or one of the several copies that spread around the country.

Spread

Online, Carreta Furacão is known worldwide, sometimes as a nightmare fuel or comedy content meme. For instance, TikTok^[3] user @megacarretas shared a clip featuring some dance performances from the group dressed as El Chavo Del Ocho characters (shown below, left), which garnered over 3 million plays and 181,000 likes since posted on March 27th, 2023. On May 9th, 2022, TIkTok^[4] user @scarycentral uploaded a clip of a Fofão dancer doing a wall back-flip paired with the caption "What is that?", amassing over 3 million plays and 344,000 likes in a year.

Various Examples

Search Interest

Search queries for Carreta Furacão had a peak in February 2011, following a viralization of their videos on YouTube that led them to appear on TV shows as internet celebrities. The highest peak, however, can be seen currently in April 2016.

External References