Badger Badger Badger
Twelve cartoon badgers do calisthenics to a chant that never stops, interrupted by a mushroom and a snake. The joke is that it loops forever and you cannot escape it — one of the great earworms of the early internet.
The animation went live on B3ta.com on September 2, 2003, created by British animator Jonti Picking, who goes by the handle Weebl. The design was diabolically simple: a short loop of badgers exercising while a relentless chant names what's on screen ("Badger badger badger... Mushroom mushroom!"), interrupted by a snake in the desert ("Snaaake!"). There was no punchline because there was no ending.
It spread through school computer labs and office email chains, weird enough that you had to show someone. Picking kept it going with spinoff versions: a zombie-badgers edition in 2003 and a Euro 2004 football edition. A decade later, in 2013, he made "Save the Badger Badger Badger" with Queen guitarist Brian May as part of a real campaign against the UK badger cull. PC World named the original one of the top five internet fads of all time in 2009, and in May 2026 the British Film Institute formally preserved it. Picking went on to the MTV Europe series Weebl and Bob, but the badgers are what everyone remembers.
Keep talking about it (Reddit)
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