Dancing Toothless

Origin

On December 9th, 2023, the Dutch animator and YouTuber Cas van de Pol posted a video titled "The Ultimate 'How To Train Your Dragon' Recap Cartoon" — a compressed retelling of the whole film series redrawn in his own style.

The meme is one short passage inside it. Around the 1:30 mark, Hiccup snaps his fingers and the dragon Toothless abruptly starts dancing. The music underneath is the "Driftveil City" theme from Pokémon Black & White, and the choreography copies the 2018 "Dancing Lizard" meme, in which a 3D-animated lizard danced to various songs. Per Know Your Meme's account, the source video passed 4 million views within two weeks.

The meme therefore rests on two layers of quotation: it borrows a video game track, borrows choreography from a five-year-old meme, and hands both to a character from an unrelated franchise.

Spread

It took off properly that same month, once the scene was clipped out on TikTok. Green screen assets circulated with everything but the dancing Toothless removed, and users composited him into their own footage and locations. That the source is 2D animation made isolating him easy, which helped.

Once the format settled, the question became where to put him. Game screens, street footage, scenes from other cartoons — the same dance repeats while only the background changes, making it an endlessly copyable template. The fixed music helps too: the meme is recognizable by sound alone.

How it is used

• As an editing game, compositing the green screen asset into any background
• As a reaction video for being pleased or excited
• As an allusion, invoking the meme with the "Driftveil City" music alone
• As the sequel case when discussing the 2018 Dancing Lizard lineage

Sources

• Know Your Meme, "Dancing Toothless" — the December 9th, 2023 Cas van de Pol video and its title, the roughly 1:30 timestamp, the "Driftveil City" track from Pokémon Black & White, the 4 million views in two weeks, the relationship to the 2018 Dancing Lizard meme, and the TikTok green screen spread
• Daily Dot, "Toothless Dancing Meme: History and Origins" — an article on how the meme formed and spread