The Crazy Frog

Crazy Frog
Crazy Frog at the Australian tour in 2005
Background information
Origin	Gothenburg, Sweden
Genres	Eurodance
Years active	1997–2009
Labels	Ministry of Sound, Mach 1 Records GmbH, Universal Music Group, Warner Music

Crazy Frog, originally known as The Annoying Thing, is a Swedish computer-animated character created in 1997 by Swedish actor and playwright Erik Wernquist. Marketed by the ringtone provider Jamba! (later known as Jamster), the animation was originally created to accompany a sound effect produced by Australian singer songwriter Sav Martino and Daniel Malmedahl in 1997 while attempting to imitate the sound of a two-stroke engine.

The Crazy Frog spawned a worldwide hit single with a remix of "Axel F", which reached the number one spot in Turkey, New Zealand, Australia and most of Europe. The subsequent album Crazy Frog Presents Crazy Hits and second single "Popcorn" also enjoyed worldwide chart success, and a second album entitled Crazy Frog Presents More Crazy Hits was released in 2006. The Crazy Frog has also spawned a range of merchandise and toys, and two video games.

In 1997, 17-year-old Gothenburg student Daniel Malmedahl recorded himself imitating the noises produced by a two stroke engine. He posted this on a website and caught the attention of a Swedish television researcher, who convinced Daniel to perform the sound live on air. After it debuted on television, recordings of his performance began appearing on file sharing networks and various websites under the filename "2TAKTARE.MP3" ("Tvåtaktare" is Swedish for "two stroker").

The sound was adopted as the sound of a Formula One car as early as 2001 in the form of "Deng Deng Form" and later "The Insanity Test" both of which were a static background of a Ferrari Formula One car accompanied by the sound.

In late 2003, another Swede, Erik Wernquist, encountered the sound effect and, not knowing about the previous incarnations of the sound, was inspired to create the 3D animated character he named "The Annoying Thing" to accompany it. Wernquist worked on the first animation in his spare time using the LightWave 3D modeling application, and the whole process took between 6 and 8 weeks. In October 2003 he posted it on his website and on the CGTalk forum.