Before there was The Git Up Challenge there was The Running Man Challenge.
While the dance itself, performed to the 1995 hit “My Boo” by Ghost Town DJs, was part of the New Jersey club scene for years, the viral challenge started with two teenagers in 2016.
At the time, Kevin Vincent was 18 and Jerry Hall was 15 and their “My Boo” videos – which feature a particular dance not related to the running man of the 80s – went viral on Instagram.
“Me and [Hall] were just bored one day in class, typical teenage stuff, and the song came right in my head and I started singing it,” Vincent explained. “And when I started singing it, [Hall] started dancing. And I thought to myself, ‘I have a little following on my Instagram page, so why not put it on camera and make a little joke?'”
There’s really no reason it should have gone viral – there’s nothing terribly special about it. It’s just one of those curious things that happen on the Internet for no apparent reason.
“The first one kind of went crazy, so I made a second one,” Vincent told the Washington Post. “And that one just went all over the place.”
Soon after, it became popular among college basketball players during the NCAA tournament when players from the Maryland Terps college basketball team – Jared Nickens, Damonte Dodd, and Jaylen Brantley – started uploading their own videos.
Within weeks, everyone and their grandmother – quite literally – started taking part in the challenge.
By early May of 2016, the police got involved.
It started in New Zealand where a group of officers took part in the challenge and opened it up to other law enforcement around the world.
In June of 2016, the San Antonio Police Department uploaded their entry into the challenge and it’s been viewed over 677,000 times on YouTube alone since then. And commenters seem to think it’s the best of all the police department efforts.
“Killed it, San Antonio. Was watching many of the police dept Running Man Challenge videos and I think yours is the best…and I am from the suburbs of Detroit. Detroit was tops until I found yours. Definitely nailed it,” one viewer insisted.
It begins with two officers munching on some tacos when they get a call. In fact, tacos might be the real star of this particular challenge video – there are some in nearly every scene!
After a quick ode to Davy Crockett (oddly enough), we get a moment of Michael Jackson’s “Beat It” as the responding officers deal with the “disturbance.”
The Michael Jackson impersonator even joins them for the beginning of “My Boo” to lead them into the challenge.
Aside from the late King of Pop, the police department called on some other seriously unexpected reinforcements to create their nearly 9-minute video!
Even some Star Wars characters have inexplicable cameos (be sure to watch to the end if you want to see Darth Vader delivering churros to a table in a Mexican restaurant).
And why not, the dance is pretty random anyway?!
There’s something incredibly joyful about the utter absurdity of some of the moments, but officers from each generation appear to be having a blast as they dance to the throwback hit.
It’s hard not to smile as you watch them bust a move.
This is definitely a police department with a sense of humor.
Be sure to scroll down below to see the epic video from a dance challenge you may have forgotten.
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