responsible for the meme's spread, news website Vox reports that the meme became viral after it was converted and posted as an animated GIF by developer John Woodell. Users and animators were able to render their own video clips of the 'original' animated dancing baby (sk_baby.max) and circulate these via the Compuserve (Internet) forums, World Wide Web (commercial and private websites), and in print ads and unrestricted e-mail. Such activity proliferated most significantly from mainstream (Windows users) royalty-free access to and user renderings of the 3D dancing baby source file for use on the Internet and in broadcast television via several news editorials, advertisements, and even comic programming in local, national (U.S.), and various international markets. Woodell's animated GIF then proliferated to numerous other websites, and later proceeded to show up in a broad array of mainstream media, including television dramas (e.g., Ally McBeal), commercial advertisements, and music videos between 1997 and 1998. Modifications Variations to the original animation were later produced by numerous animators by modifying the sk_baby.max sample file's animation or the baby model itself, including a "drunken baby", a "rasta baby", a "samurai baby", and others. However, none of these became as popular on the Internet as the original file, and most popular uses of Dancing Baby are virtually unchanged from the original character mesh and animation. Legacy In February 2020, Twitter user @JArmstrongArty not only rediscovered the original Dancing Baby file, but also converted the original animation into high definition. In June 2022, the original creator Team Michael Girard, Robert Lurye and John Chadwick teamed up with Viennese design boutique HFA-Studio to release a digitally restored, high definition version of the Original Dancing Baby as non-fungible-token. To set the original creation in perspective they invited contemporary 3D artists and animators like Chris Torres (creator of the famous "Nyan Cat"), Serwah Attafuah or Kid Eight to "remix" the dancing baby. The project appeared on various media outlets like CNN and gained a lot of attraction in the crypto scene. Appearances in mainstream media The Dancing Baby animation spread quickly on popular web forums, individual websites, international e-mail, demo videos, commercials, and eventually mainstream television. Awareness of the baby most significantly increased when it was featured on CBS, CNN, and Fox's comic drama series Ally McBeal. The animation was shown on several episodes of Ally McBeal as a recurring hallucination, suggesting a metaphor for the ticking of Ally's