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All Your Base Are Belong To Frogstar
I like inside jokes. I've always liked inside jokes. I
especially like huge big inside jokes that hundreds - or perhaps thousands of
people are "in" on. We all gain some special feeling by being in on the
joke. The name FROGSTAR is based on such an inside joke. Some
understand it, some do not.
 ALL YOUR BASE ARE BELONG TO US is such a joke. A cool, hip
Internet generation inside joke.
In 1989, when video games were crude, an early video game ZERO WING was
released with several bits of digitized voice.. The problem was, it
contained really awful English, translated from Japanese. So bad, it was
funny. So funny, several lines caught on as catch phrases. The dialogue of
Zero Wing contains such gems as "Somebody set up us the bomb," "Take off every Zig
for great justice" and a chilling warning from a villain known only as Cats;
"All your base are belong to us".
Then some creative people, we're not sure who was first - started the trend
of doctoring regular Internet culture images with the phrase, and trading them
among friends. Quickly, people joined suit, and a whole culture of image
manipulators began designing their own versions. Some good, some great, some
lame... but almost all, very creative image manipulation.
At some point, Kansas City computer programmer and part-time deejay Jeffrey Ray Roberts sampled the quote and added an annoyingly catchy dance track. "I did it for the sheer inside-joke value," he says. "Everyone was trying to one-up each other." Next came a two-minute music video, and soon "All your base!" was being yelled out of dorm windows on campuses around the country.
The MP3 and video were the turning point that brought the joke from obscurity to
mainstream pop culture. All Your Base spread from office to office via e-mail like a benign virus.
The video was creative, funny, and catchy. Eventually, media started
writing about the phenomenon. This was bigger than the DANCING BABY, which
was the last big Internet culture joke. Even today, although the boom of
excitement may have passed, new people find out about it every day. You
can still see references and ALL YOUR BASE ARE BELONG TO US displays appearing
in odd places, both on and offline.
AYBABTU is a great example of creative fun, for the sake of fun. It
serves no purpose, other than sharing, creative art, and fun. This site is
a tribute. A large collection of creative work; some good, some great, and
some lame. Enjoy.
[ HISTORY ] [ VIDEO ] [ MP3 ] [
AYB PICS ]
TIMELINE:
This is kind of old now, although AYBABTU stuff still shows up online. Not
all these links will still be valid. This is from:
http://hubert.retrogames.com/history.htm (No longer there)
(modified by friend: Derek Serianni)
As you probably know, the phrase came from a badly
translated video game intro. The game was
Zero
Wing, released on the
Sega
Genesis/Megadrive. The English version seems to have been a Europe-only release.
As to WHY it's so popular... That's a bit of a mystery. My personal opinion is
that it's a perfect summary for the badly translated games of our youth. Not
only that, but "ALL YOUR BASE ARE BELONG TO US" and "FOR GREAT
JUSTICE" are just plain random fun. Most of the early spread can be
attributed to gamers. In many team games, the object is to capture, steal a flag
from, or otherwise infiltrate the enemy's base. It's a natural fit with the
phrase.
Here's the sequence of events:
- 1989: Zero Wing's english version is
released in Europe.
- Mid 1998: A different version of the
Zero Wing .gif is posted on the now-defunct Rage Games quote page. When the
site morphs into
Whazzat!,
the .gif is replaced by text.
- Late 1998/Early 1999: The current
Zero Wing
animated
.GIF is posted on
Zany
Video Game Quotes, submitted by Seymont. It
begins slowly circulating the internet.
- Fall 1998: Zero Wing (the arcade
version) is first
emulated.
The arcade version is missing the intro, but the ending has a similar
translation.
- March 13, 2000:
Toaplan.com
opens. The site contains info about Zero Wing and other Toaplan games.
- June 5, 2000:
The
Zero Wing Dub Project is posted at
OverClocked.
- July 31, 2000: The Mistranslated
Ship Captain becomes a guru at the
True
Meaning of Life. His first post is
here.
- Summer 2000: The forums at
Something
Awful start to get infected. The .gif is in
at least one person's signature. It gets posted with some regularity in
various threads. A few people link back to the dub.
- Fall 2000: According to one visitor,
AYBABTU was appearing on
Stile
Project as the title & in images. This
was reportedly a result of
Jeff
K.'s
hack
of the site - Stile liked it and kept it a
while.
- September 6, 2000: On the SA forums,
a gimmick poster called Alf posts a picture of Alf on the phone. Starscream
adds a speech bubble saying "All your base are belong to us." It's
a hit, and gets posted a few more times.
Here's
a copy of the picture.
- October 12, 2000: AYBABTU begins
appearing on the
relic.com
forums.
- November 6 - 21, 2000: The Something
Awful era, and the origin of the photoshopping
- A thread is posted - The title is "ALL YUOR
BASE ARE BELONG TO US!!" (yes, it was spelled "YUOR"),
and the only message is "ON THE TABLE!!" By the end of the
first page, the photoshopping had begun.
- The
first
image, a skeleton from Army of
Darkness, was done by Starscream (again!). A copy of the first page
of the thread may be found
here.
Thanks to clockworkjoe of the SA forums, who saved the first (and most
important) page!
- As further evidence,
this
thread linked back to the SA one.
- Around page 10, word begins to spread.
HardOCP
is one of the first to link back to it.
- Some of the pictures are incredible works of
Photoshopping (like the Times Square pic done by The Yellow Yell).
- Some sites, like
Planet
Namek, temporarily add AYBABTU to their
pages. PN had it in their title tag for a couple of weeks.
- The first(?) two stores open,
here
and
here.
- The forums collapse in on themselves. Suddenly,
the last couple of pages of the thread disappear.
- A short time after, somebody using a hacked
moderator account deletes the first page of the thread. This basicially
kills the thread, since it no longer appears in the listings.
- Finagler's
archive
of the early parts of the thread remains.
- People who had been exposed to the phenomeon
(mostly 3D game fans) take it back to their own boards, and similar
threads (often using the same pictures) are started.
- November (?) 14, 2000: JRR, one of
the SA forum regulars, releases
Invasion
of the Gabber Robots, the Zero Wing
remix. NOTE: I'm not 100% sure of the month -
the
thread is still archived, but the forum
doesn't show months. It was most likely either November or December.
- November 28, 2000: A report/poll on
the US elections appears on
Ars
Techinca: All Your Votes Are Belong to Us!!
Check the archive page
here.
- December 16, 2000:
Tribal
War's
thread
begins. As this is one of the oldest remaining threads, they are often
mistakenly given credit for starting the phenomeon.
- January 12, 2001:
Part
4 of "A
Winner Is You,"
Hubert's
game quote-based storyline is posted. It passes completely beneath the pop
culture radar.
- January 14, 2001:
Solidsharkey.com
puts up
a
history. It's not as complete as this one,
and may have some inaccuracies (WAS the Genesis version of ZW ever a US
release? I can only find the info/ROM for a European version), but it is the
first attempt at documenting ZW history. Note that I didn't find out about
this until 10 minutes ago.
- February 11, 2001:
Eskimo
Bob posts
Episode
12: AD 2101
- February 13, 2001:
memepool.com
posts about AYBABTU. They link to the Tribal War thread.
- Approx. February 15, 2001: Bad_CRC
of Tribal War releases the now-infamous
music
video. There are some copyright issues
(permission wasn't asked to use JRR's song), but it continues to spread like
wildfire.
- February 16, 2001:
Plastic
reports the Flash video. Read the story and see comments
here.
- February 18, 2001:
- February 19, 2001:
- February 20, 2001:
- The
San
Francisco Chronicle (both print &
web versions) runs a
story
about AYBABTU.
- OverClocked returns with a Zero Wing based
comic.
- Around this time, "All Your Base Are Belong
to Us" was accepted into
Eijiro's
database (I'm told it's the world's biggest online English-Japanese
dictionary - the FAQ is
here,
but I can't read a word of it). It'll be added next update, which should
be April or May sometime.
- February 21, 2001:
- Salon.com
runs
this
story (scroll down a bit), about the US Army's use of the phrase, as
well as a brief expanantion.
- Online comic
Real
Life has a (subtle) AYBABTU in
this
strip.
- Somebody chalks All Your Base Are Belong to Us on
the roof of Wean Hall at Carnegie Mellon University.
Photo
1 -
Photo
2 -
Photo
3
- February 22, 2001:
- February 23, 2001:
- February 24, 2001: Online comic
Doctor
Fun changes their logo to a CATS/AYBABTU
one. The pic is mirrored
here,
just in case it gets changed.
- February 26, 2001:
- Time
Magazine had a small article about it
(Issue dated March 5). Scanned version
here
(scan by GODHED). Online version
here.
JRR finally gets credit!
- As several people have informed me, the cancelled
Fox
TV show
Freaky
Links has had it's page replaced with
AYBABTU.
- Sluggy
Freelance features Somebody Set Up Us
the Bomb and AYBABTU in the background of
this
strip.
- MyDivX.com
posts an interesting image in one of their updates.
- MP3.com pulls Invasion of the Gabber Robots
from TLMOM's
site.
They claim copyright violations, as the song uses Zero Wing samples.
They don't seem to realize that Toaplan has been bankrupt and gone for 6
years. The SA thread where this is brought up is located
here.
- AYBABTU-related posters were put up at Harvard -
more information & photos can be found
here
and
here.
- February 27, 2001:
- "All Your Base Are Belong to Us" makes
its debut at #46 on the
Lycos
50.
- Angelfire posts
this
page, which is where the
Lycos
50 entry links.
- Invasion of the Gabber Robots is put
back on MP3.com after they recieve numerous complaints about it's
removal, and realize that Toaplan no longer exists.
- Finagler's
archive
is updated. The pics are now at full size, and the animated .gifs are
included. There do still seem to be some missing, though.
- Neopets
introduces a new shopkeeper - a
cat-like
CATS. Currently on the
New
Features page is a picture, captioned
"All your Neopet are belong to us!"
-
AYBABTU
in real life - some guys put up a banner
on a bridge in Australia.
- Another one - "All Your Base Are Belong to
Us" was written in chalk all around the Georgia Tech campus.
- Another AYBABTU comic - check out
this
guest strip at
PDI.
- February 28, 2001:
- The Lycos 50's
article
is up.
- Another
User
Friendly
cartoon
includes AYBABTU.
- The
Guardian runs a
story.
Hmm... Mention of the Alf picture, DrEldarion's store, and credit to
SomethingAwful - wonder if they've been here...
- March 1, 2001:
- The
Detroit
Free Press ran a
story.
It seems they forgot to give credit to JRR/TLMOM for the song (seemingly
giving it to PlanetStarsiege) - anybody want to set them straight?
- NetSlaves
posts a
story.
- AYBABTU in
this
Soap
on a Rope comic.
- Another AYBABTU in real life. At the University
of Pennsylvania, pictures of their president Judy Rodin begin appearing.
They have a speech bubble that says "All your base are belong to
us."
- March 2, 2001:
- March 3, 2001:
- The
Daily
Mirror runs a full-page
story
about AYBABTU, including a link to this web site!
- The
Disco
Scottie Show played Invasion of the
Gabber Robots during the show - coming back from every break, as a
matter of fact.
- The
website
for upcoming game Doom 3 launches - check the hidden text (Select all,
try dragging underneath the logo, or view the source). I'm not sure of
the date - IE properties said March 3, so that's what I'm using. If
anybody knows otherwise, let me know.
- March 4, 2001:
- CATS-Mania infects
HP:
Check out the monitor on
this
page.
- TechTV
airs part of the
flash.
- The
Osdorp
Posse's home page is hacked to include
"What You Say?" in the main image map.
- The Dutch postcode lookup
website
was altered - ALL YOUR POSTCODE ARE BELONG TO US!! It's back to normal
now.
- All Your Base with lasers at the Harshman dorm at
Bowling Green State Univ in Ohio - Check it out
here.
- AYBABTU is painted on Coolidge Bridge in
Northampton, Mass.
Photo
1 -
Photo
2
- On national television, someone in the crowd of
the MU vs KU men's basketball game held up a sign that read "All
your base are belong to us." Anybody have a screen capture?
- March 5, 2001:
- March 6, 2001:
- March 7, 2001:
- USA
Today runs an
article.
- "All Your Base Are Belong to Us" moves
up 10 places to #36 on the
Lycos
50.
- The
Internet TOURBUS runs a
story
about the AYB "conspiracy." Not to mention changing their
front page a bit...
-
TheTripleHelix.com
posts a short blurb - it also makes it into their poll (check the
previous poll archive).
- The author of
Schlock
Mercenary declared he won't have
AYBABTU in his strip. Ah, well - somebody had to.
- The
Parking Lot is Full's author posts
this...
novelization? of the Zero Wing Intro. Kids - don't click those
links. Rated M for Mature.
- Fourth and Inches, a comic in the Notre Dame
newspaper
the
Observer, features an AYBABTU. I'll add
a link once the page is working - it's down at the moment.
- March 8, 2001:
- From a reader: "In a limited run of 200 from
Steve
Jackson Games, the now famous line
appears prominantly in bold at the bottom of the instruction sheet of a
new game called Frag."
-
Jiminy
Critic, a movie review site,
reviews
the Flash.
-
Audiogalaxy
runs a
story
on Japanese Pop called "All Your Base Are Belong to Us"
- AYB sighted on the
official
Tomb Raider Movie web site - click on
the "Image of the Week" link.
- As a result of the Ethermoon forum posting on
March 2, a fan creates
this
Java game - watch the intro. The first
AYB in a game (besides Zero Wing, of course)? Possibly.
- March 9, 2001:
- March 10, 2001:
- ESPN.com
mentiones AYB in a
humor
story.
- Reports indicate that somebody is posting AYBABTU
stickers in Toronto.
- March 11, 2001:
- March 12, 2001: AYB appears in
this
installment of nationally syndicated comic
strip
Fox
Trot. I'll update the link once it moves to
it's own page. While thanking each of the roughly 10,000 people that
e-mailed me would quadruple the Special Thanks section, the first was
"The Rushes." Thanks to everybody for that one.
Newsday
doesn't carry the strip, so I never would've known.
- March 15, 2001: An
article
appears in the
LA
Times.
- March 21, 2001: AYBABTU on the front
page of
the
Onion. I got this story from a TON of
people, but the first was Gabe Jones. Thanks!
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