Baby dollars

AT last, the moment all its fans have been waiting for: this Wednesday, Ally McBeal will boogie with the Dancing Baby. You will know Ally McBeal (unless you are dead). You should know the Dancing Baby: the first Internet cult to make it on TV.

Baby was created by the Palo Alto animation company Unreal Pictures Inc in America to demonstrate a natty piece of character animation software. The result, a 3D tot who grooves in disturbingly grownup ways, which you will find either repulsive or compelling.

Netties have no doubt: since Baby was first downloaded, it has developed a fanatical following and more incarnations than Jim Carrey.

The most recent are Prodigy Baby, who goes insane to the tune of Prodigy's Breathe, and Psyko Baby who trips out to psychedelic retro sounds. Then there is the one that bestrides a site with an Uzi 9mm and ill-intent: meet Terminator Baby.

Inevitably, Dancing Baby is now big business - licensed T-shirts, the Baby tie, boxer shorts... And where Baby goes, others follow. The first episode of South Park, the psychotic adult animation currently on Channel 4 on Friday nights, was launched on the Net.

The latest crossover star is Blackout's Box. Blackout is an actor/crank caller based in Florida. His most popular character is Gladys, an old lady who, like an avenging harpy, accuses people of evil acts of which they have no knowledge and browbeats them until they confess.

Blackout then follows up as policeman, neighbour, whatever to complete the hellish performance.

Now a cable company in Florida is to produce its own version.

Blackout says, in the hyperactive gibberish he has made his own: "If you like anything that is on the website now you are going to freak out at the show. It has nothing to do with crank calls, but everything to do with inanity and all the characters featured in the calls will come to life in the show." The moral is clear.

Get an idea and get on the Net... TV stardom is only a website away.

PKinetix - home of the Dancing Baby: http://www.ktx.com. Unofficial Dancing Baby page http://www.nwlink.com/xott/b abypage.htm. Dancing Baby T-shirts and ties http://www.insaniteesonline.co m/dancing.htm. Dancing Baby merchandise http://www.crashdesignes.com /baby.html. Terminator Baby: http://www.crl.com./-rnk.

South Park http://www.comedy central.com. Blackout's Box http://www.blackout.com

Copyright 1998
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