The bunny hop is a
novelty dance created at
Balboa High School in
San Francisco
San Francisco (; Spanish language, Spanish for "Francis of Assisi, Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the List of Ca ...
in 1952.
["New Pop Records"]
''Time
Time is the continued sequence of existence and events that occurs in an apparently irreversible succession from the past, through the present, into the future. It is a component quantity of various measurements used to sequence events, t ...
''. January 26, 1953. It is a
mixer dance, sometimes also referred to as a "party" or "dance party" dance.
History
The
dance has been generally done to
Ray Anthony's
big band
A big band or jazz orchestra is a type of musical ensemble of jazz music that usually consists of ten or more musicians with four sections: saxophones, trumpets, trombones, and a rhythm section. Big bands originated during the early 1910s ...
recording of the song with this name.
[ It was a vocal hit in 1952, and instrumentally re-recorded 1958. The song has been re-recorded by others, including musical updates of the style, for example, a salsa version. ]Duke Ellington
Edward Kennedy "Duke" Ellington (April 29, 1899 – May 24, 1974) was an American jazz pianist, composer, and leader of his eponymous jazz orchestra from 1923 through the rest of his life. Born and raised in Washington, D.C., Ellington was ba ...
recorded "Bunny Hop Mambo" in 1954. Other popular music of the era is also used, such as " The Glow-Worm".
In 1979, several men were arrested for public lewdness during the Village Station police raid for dancing in a bunny hop.
Description
The dance is a variation on a conga line. Participants dance in a line or a circle
A circle is a shape consisting of all points in a plane that are at a given distance from a given point, the centre. Equivalently, it is the curve traced out by a point that moves in a plane so that its distance from a given point is const ...
, holding on to the hips of the person in front of them. They tap the floor two times with their left foot, then with their right foot, then they hop forwards, backwards, and finally three hops forward to finish the sequence, which continues throughout the tune. The first person in the line or the open circle leads the group around the floor.
Variations
The '' letkajenkka'' from Finland has essentially the same steps.
In 2014 in Saudi Arabia, the same dance set to slightly different music (referred to as "''raqsat al-batriq''", the "penguin dance") became a popular trend on online video-sharing sites and a staple at wedding dance parties."'Penguin Dancing' Meme Takes Saudi Arabia By Storm"
BuzzFeed
BuzzFeed, Inc. is an American Internet media, news and entertainment company with a focus on digital media. Based in New York City, BuzzFeed was founded in 2006 by Jonah Peretti and John S. Johnson III to focus on tracking viral content. ...
. April 12, 2014. Retrieved December 21, 2015.
In popular culture
*
Allan Sherman listed the bunny hop as "a very nice dance" at the coda of his parody "
Crazy Downtown
"Crazy Downtown" is a song written and performed by Allan Sherman. The song is a parody of Tony Hatch's song "Downtown" which was a hit for Petula Clark (because of the use of the melody, Hatch also receives songwriting credit). The song reached ...
", along with older dances such as the
tango
Tango is a partner dance and social dance that originated in the 1880s along the Río de la Plata, the natural border between Argentina and Uruguay. The tango was born in the impoverished port areas of these countries as the result of a combina ...
and
waltz
The waltz ( ), meaning "to roll or revolve") is a ballroom and folk dance, normally in triple ( time), performed primarily in closed position.
History
There are many references to a sliding or gliding dance that would evolve into the w ...
(as opposed to modern dances such as
the Frug).
*The Ray Anthony version is heard in
John Waters
John Samuel Waters Jr. (born April 22, 1946) is an American filmmaker, writer, actor, and artist. He rose to fame in the early 1970s for his transgressive cult films, including '' Multiple Maniacs'' (1970), '' Pink Flamingos'' (1972) and '' Fe ...
' film ''
Cry-Baby
''Cry-Baby'' is a 1990 American teen musical romantic comedy film written and directed by John Waters. It was the only film of Waters's over which studios were in a bidding war, coming off the heels of the successful ''Hairspray''. The film sta ...
'' with Baldwin and the Whiffles hopping.
*The bunny hop is shown in the pilot episode of ''
Family Ties
''Family Ties'' is an American sitcom television series that aired on NBC for seven seasons, premiering on September 22, 1982, and concluding on May 14, 1989. The series, created by Gary David Goldberg, reflected the move in the United States f ...
'' when Alex attends a country club event and mentioned again in the episode "Karen II, Alex 0".
*In ''
The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air
''The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air'' is an American television sitcom created by Andy and Susan Borowitz for NBC. It aired from September 10, 1990, to May 20, 1996. The series stars Will Smith as a fictionalized version of himself, a street-smart ...
'' episode "Fresh Prince After Dark", Carlton is seen doing the bunny hop at the
Playboy Mansion
The Playboy Mansion, also known as the Playboy Mansion West, is the former home of ''Playboy'' magazine founder Hugh Hefner who lived there from 1974 until his death in 2017. Barbi Benton convinced Hefner to buy the home located in Holmby Hill ...
.
*In the ''
Everybody Loves Raymond
''Everybody Loves Raymond'' is an American sitcom television series created by Philip Rosenthal that aired on CBS from September 13, 1996, to May 16, 2005, with a total of 210 episodes spanning nine seasons. It was produced by Where's Lunch a ...
'' episode "The Walk to the Door",
Robert Barone dances to the bunny hop at a family wedding.
*In the ''
Newhart
''Newhart'' is an American sitcom television series that aired on CBS from October 25, 1982, to May 21, 1990, with a total of 184 half-hour episodes spanning eight seasons. The series stars Bob Newhart and Mary Frann as an author and his wife ...
'' episode "Jumpin' George", George Utley dances the bunny hop in the lobby area, to keep from falling asleep and having a recurring dream.
*In ''
The Addams Family Musical'', the living Addams clan joins with their newly-risen deceased ancestors in doing the bunny hop (along with line-dancing and
The Twist).
References
{{reflist
External links
The bunny hop from ''The Ray Anthony Show'' (1953) YouTube
Novelty and fad dances