Channel Frederator Blog

Here is a brief history of how “Crazy Frog”, or “The Annoying Thing” got it’s start. (with much information gathered from Bloggerheads)

First, there was this image of a race car with someone doing a voiceover which was supposed to be the voice of the engine.

In late 2001, it morphed into “The Insanity Test” (not to be confused with “The Sanity Test”) which appears to have gone viral from December 2001 onwards.

In 2003, a 3D animator by the name of Erik Wernquist came across the sound file and - untainted by Deng Deng and the Insanity Test - proceeded to create his own visual interpretation.

Erik Wernquist tells the world that: “A little more than a month after I had put the animation up I got a phone call from a somewhat confused person claiming he recognised the sound in my animation as his own creation. His name was Daniel Malmedahl and he said he had been contacted by a friend of his telling him to check out my website. I was a little uncertain at first but when he gave me the “proof” of performing the sound live on the phone there was no doubt he was the guy I was looking for. Apparently he was oblivious to the fact that his sound had spread around the internet, even before the Annoying Thing.”

On December 2003, the page where Eric made his creation - The Annoying Thing - available for download has carried the following message: “To contact the voice of ‘The Thing’, send him a mail at daniel.malmedahl@telia.com”

Erik Wernquist (creator of the Crazy Frog character) and Daniel Malmedahl (endorsed by Erik as the originator of the sound file) appear to have agreed to the use of their intellectual property by the companies Jamba! and Zed, so we can assume that they have been compensated for any/all commercial use.

I think the story of how this piece of internet fame came to life would make a great film… or at least a decent video on YouTube.

-Floyd Bishop