0:00:03 > 0:00:07Hello, I'm TV's Robert Webb, and tonight I'm going to tantalise you
0:00:07 > 0:00:11with just a few of pop's greatest dance crazes.
0:00:19 > 0:00:23Daft Punk Around The World is sort of like a weird modern music box.
0:00:23 > 0:00:27You open up the lid and think, "What the hell is going on here?"
0:00:27 > 0:00:32- It's the most bizarre video in the world.- Visually, it was amazing.
0:00:32 > 0:00:35It was so simple. Yet there was a lot going on.
0:00:35 > 0:00:38Top pop video director Michel Gondry's vision
0:00:38 > 0:00:41was to make each of the dancers represent the instruments.
0:00:41 > 0:00:45It brought us some pretty crazy choreography.
0:00:45 > 0:00:50So the synchronised swimmers are the high-pitched keyboard synth.
0:00:50 > 0:00:51It's art, go with it.
0:00:53 > 0:00:57What you are watching is the human representation
0:00:57 > 0:01:00of what Daft Punk have created digitally.
0:01:00 > 0:01:03It's an incredibly clever idea.
0:01:03 > 0:01:07The tall B-boys symbolise the ascending and descending bass guitar.
0:01:07 > 0:01:10The mummies are dancing in time with the song's drumbeat.
0:01:10 > 0:01:13The itchy skeletons are the guitars.
0:01:13 > 0:01:17And the astronauts represent the robot voice repeating that
0:01:17 > 0:01:21one famous vocal over and over and over again.
0:01:21 > 0:01:23I used to be able to do the skeleton dance.
0:01:25 > 0:01:29My favourite thing is the random spacemen. Just walk around.
0:01:29 > 0:01:33And then when they get to the front, they all get confused.
0:01:35 > 0:01:37One of them turns back on himself. He's like that and going...
0:01:37 > 0:01:41He goes, no, keep going forward and it's just a really nice little
0:01:41 > 0:01:44ripple of that happening and you sort of think it's gone wrong but it hasn't.
0:01:44 > 0:01:49Daft Punk brought robotics back. Thanks, Daft Punk!
0:01:49 > 0:01:51Robo-dance was popular in the '80s,
0:01:51 > 0:01:55back when a home computer was a Sinclair ZX80 or Commodore 64.
0:01:55 > 0:01:58But if robotic dancers really wanted to mimic computers,
0:01:58 > 0:02:01they should have moved like they were about to print a spreadsheet
0:02:01 > 0:02:04before inexplicably freezing until they are put to sleep.
0:02:05 > 0:02:10I think that the robot is up there with the greatest dance crazes.
0:02:10 > 0:02:13At the point to the robot was revealed to the world,
0:02:13 > 0:02:17I don't know a single human being who didn't then give it a go.
0:02:18 > 0:02:20Oh, Mickey, you're so fine,
0:02:20 > 0:02:22you're so fine you blow my mind, hey, Mickey.
0:02:24 > 0:02:26I love a cheerleader, don't you?
0:02:26 > 0:02:31At 45 in our Top 50 countdown is Mickey by Toni Basil.
0:02:31 > 0:02:32She was a lady, by the way.
0:02:32 > 0:02:34Toni, that is, not Mickey.
0:02:39 > 0:02:41# Oh, Mickey, you're so fine
0:02:41 > 0:02:43# You're so fine you blow my mind
0:02:43 > 0:02:46# Hey Mickey, hey Mickey
0:02:46 > 0:02:48Hey, Mickey, you're so fine,
0:02:48 > 0:02:50you're so fine you blow my mind. Hey Mickey!
0:02:50 > 0:02:53Hey Mickey! Hey, Mickey, you're so fine... Oh, I love that.
0:02:53 > 0:02:56She had a little ra-ra, wasn't it, and with the pom poms.
0:02:56 > 0:03:00They used to fall into splits at the end, of course. Yes, yes. Oh, Mickey Basil.
0:03:00 > 0:03:01Toni Basil, even.
0:03:01 > 0:03:05Whatever. I wasn't interested in her name, just in her skirt.
0:03:07 > 0:03:10Toni Basil was choreographer to the stars before she donned
0:03:10 > 0:03:14her old high school cheerleader outfit and topped the charts
0:03:14 > 0:03:16in 1982 with this high-octane ditty.
0:03:16 > 0:03:18# Hey Mickey
0:03:18 > 0:03:21# You been around all night And that's a little long
0:03:21 > 0:03:23When you think of Hey Mickey,
0:03:23 > 0:03:26you think of high energy, and you think of cheerleading,
0:03:26 > 0:03:28you think of Toni just looking hot.
0:03:31 > 0:03:34I was on the floor with poms poms and mini-skirts, of course I did.
0:03:34 > 0:03:35That's a really stupid question.
0:03:35 > 0:03:39- Ooh, pardon me for asking.- You know, dating a cheerleader isn't easy.
0:03:39 > 0:03:41If you see those American cheerleaders, what they do,
0:03:41 > 0:03:43it's an art form in itself.
0:03:44 > 0:03:46# Oh, what you do, Mickey do, Mickey
0:03:46 > 0:03:47# Don't break my heart, Mickey... #
0:03:53 > 0:03:56It's actually quite a butch song.
0:03:56 > 0:03:59It's not the most feminine dance.
0:03:59 > 0:04:01It's really graaah!
0:04:01 > 0:04:03# Oh, Mickey, what a pity you don't understand... #
0:04:03 > 0:04:06She just looks a bit deranged throughout the whole dance.
0:04:06 > 0:04:09Oh, Mickey, you're so fine You're so fine you blow my mind Hey, Mickey.
0:04:09 > 0:04:10# Can't you understand... #
0:04:10 > 0:04:13The main bit to remember was the...
0:04:13 > 0:04:16that bit. Very, very, very sharp, jerking movements like that.
0:04:18 > 0:04:20You roll your wrist and you point
0:04:20 > 0:04:23at whoever you want to go home with that night. It's true.
0:04:23 > 0:04:26It's such a macho dance!
0:04:26 > 0:04:30# You take me by the heart when you take me by the hand... #
0:04:30 > 0:04:32But Toni doesn't really mind a bit of butch,
0:04:32 > 0:04:35just take a look at the cheerleaders in her video.
0:04:35 > 0:04:40I think a couple of her dancers are really quite hefty young women,
0:04:40 > 0:04:41but she used a couple of men
0:04:41 > 0:04:45and dressed them up in a couple of cheerleading outfits, because of all the lifting.
0:04:47 > 0:04:49I didn't realise that then.
0:04:49 > 0:04:51Maybe that's why I thought they were quite cute.
0:04:51 > 0:04:54It does answer a lot of questions now, actually.
0:04:54 > 0:04:58Actually, Louis, it doesn't. That's in fact an urban myth.
0:04:58 > 0:05:01The dancers you're drooling over were real cheerleaders
0:05:01 > 0:05:03from Carson High California.
0:05:03 > 0:05:06# What a pity you don't understand... #
0:05:06 > 0:05:10Many of the dancers in our top 50 are about freedom and fun and having what I can only describe
0:05:10 > 0:05:14as a gay old time, and that's fine, there's a place for that.
0:05:14 > 0:05:18But it's not now, because the only way one can successfully perform the
0:05:18 > 0:05:22dance to Fatboy Slim's Praise You is with the solemnity that it deserves.
0:05:22 > 0:05:23I thank you.
0:05:37 > 0:05:41# We've come a long long way together
0:05:41 > 0:05:46# Through the hard times and the good
0:05:46 > 0:05:47Praise you was a guerilla-style
0:05:47 > 0:05:50video featuring the Torrance Community Dance Troupe.
0:05:50 > 0:05:53This genuine-looking footage from 1999 sees them pitching up,
0:05:53 > 0:05:55uninvited, to perform some wacky
0:05:55 > 0:05:58dancing on the street outside an LA cinema.
0:06:01 > 0:06:03It is almost like a drama class. It isn't a dance, it's a drama
0:06:03 > 0:06:07class, but they're expressing themselves through movement.
0:06:07 > 0:06:10Whatever they're taking, can I have some?
0:06:10 > 0:06:14There's a routine of sorts, but it's a routine unlike
0:06:14 > 0:06:18anything that would come out of a professional dance studio.
0:06:21 > 0:06:23The video got everyone talking.
0:06:23 > 0:06:26Was it amateur footage? Who were these people?
0:06:26 > 0:06:29But those with too much time on their hands spotted Norman Cook
0:06:29 > 0:06:32peering into the camera, which kind of gave the game away.
0:06:32 > 0:06:35Turns out that they were professional dancers and the stunt
0:06:35 > 0:06:39was the brainchild of troupe leader Spike Jonze.
0:06:39 > 0:06:43Movie writer, promo director, and co-creator of Jackass.
0:06:43 > 0:06:47We kind of did it like burglar style, so nobody knew that we were filming,
0:06:47 > 0:06:49and even the people in the theatre
0:06:49 > 0:06:52didn't know that we were out there doing, like, these crazy steps.
0:06:52 > 0:06:56# I have to praise you like I should... #
0:06:56 > 0:06:59I think it was the seriousness and how we played it
0:06:59 > 0:07:03which made it even funnier, because we weren't playing it for laughs.
0:07:03 > 0:07:07But you'd have to be pretty dumb to be taken in by this.
0:07:07 > 0:07:09When I watched that video it was 100% real.
0:07:09 > 0:07:11They meant every moment of it.
0:07:11 > 0:07:14So that is genuine expression in that video.
0:07:14 > 0:07:18You know when something's being faked and they were definitely mental.
0:07:18 > 0:07:22I gave every step a funny name, so when we would do, like,
0:07:22 > 0:07:25the broken pony.
0:07:25 > 0:07:31Yeehaw! You're off to go in that broken pony land.
0:07:31 > 0:07:38And then the second step is called the bad fish cos it's swimming in the wrong direction on the river.
0:07:38 > 0:07:42But then another current comes along and you float the
0:07:42 > 0:07:45other way and you're a bad fishie and you're stuck in the current.
0:07:47 > 0:07:50As long as you danced weird, you kind of suited that...
0:07:50 > 0:07:52It was, like, mysterious.
0:07:54 > 0:07:56# Praise you... #
0:07:56 > 0:08:00That's the sort of thing you can see yourself in your own front room.
0:08:00 > 0:08:03I do, any way. Just sort of leaping around
0:08:03 > 0:08:07and doing all that and thinking you're burning off calories.
0:08:09 > 0:08:12It really wasn't a hit at the discos. Not at the time.
0:08:12 > 0:08:14I don't think, if you're going to be in some disco
0:08:14 > 0:08:20and taking you're date out, you're going to just go into a broken pony or do the bad fish, do the bad fish.
0:08:20 > 0:08:24It's just not becoming. It's not style-wise, you know, romantic.
0:08:24 > 0:08:26# I have to praise you... #