Ok, I know that this is old, and about 90% of the world has seen this, but, for those
few friends of mine who live in a cave, and the 10% of
you out there that have not been so privileged... enjoy
History of 'All Your Base' (from the
"official" website)
Toaplan creates the Zero Wing video game.
Toaplan releases a port for the Sega Genesis console with
the addition of an intro scene, which is then translated into english (very
poorly) and released in the United States.
Toaplan goes out of business.
Someone from a Zany Video Game Quotes website notices the
poor translation, and highlights the game.
Overclocked.org does a humorous voiceover of the Zero Wing
intro in a fake Wayne Newton voice.
Dozens of game-related messageboards begin to post quotes
from the parody, and images altered to show the phrase.
Most of the threads lose interest and die off quickly as
the trend is pronounced dead countless times.
The Flash movie/video is released with images from the
threads and music taken from the origional game someone had added the phrase
"all your base" to.
AYB explosively expands to the general (non game
messageboard-reading) public.
The origional site for the video is shut down within hours
due to excessive traffic, and moves to PlanetStarsiege.
Lycos ponders how "All your Base" was transformed from
obscurity to a top 50 search practically overnight.
Mainstream media begin to notice the trend, and stories
appear in Time Magazine, USA Today, Fox News, The Los Angeles Times, Tech TV,
Wired, and many others.
As the 'remix' used in the video goes from 58 hits a day to
several thousand per day, mp3.com notices the track has been ripped directly
from the video game and pulls the music off their site due to copyright
violations. It is later returned unchanged.
The trend continues to grow as it expands into nearly every
corner of the web.
Large websites like Angelfire and Hewlett Packard sneak
"all your base" references into their designs.
"All Your Base" is pronounced dead several times every day,
yet it's 15 minutes of fame continue for some reason..