Meme-ry Lane Monday: Samwell - “What What”

I'm not sure why it's so hard for me to believe that the viral classic "What What (In the Butt)" was initially released on Valentine's Day in 2007.  That's almost a full FIVE YEARS ago.  Maybe I was late discovering it, or maybe I just have a warped sense of time, but I still feel like this thing is brand new.  Samwell, a.k.a. Sam Norman, became instantly famous with this music video produced by Brownmark Films (apparently also known as Special Entertainment), with campy visuals and lyrics referring to homosexuality and related sex acts.  The video has hit 45 million views as of today, and the creators are probably well on their way to making just as much money from it.

They'd probably have already made it if the creators of South Park had paid for any rights before essentially copying the song and video precisely in an episode released in April 2008.  The lawsuit Brownmark Films filed against MTV Networks, South Park Studios, and Viacom for its use was dismissed by a federal judge before summary judgment even began on the basis of fair use, but the case is currently on appeal to the Seventh Circuit (coincidentally, the same court handling the appeal for a California judge's overturning of Proposition 8, which outlawed homosexual marriage).

In March 2010, the group released an iPhone app called "Shaky Advice from Samwell" in which video clips of Sam act as a Magic 8 Ball.  In June 2010, Samwell appeared on Tosh.0 singing a duet version of the song with Josh Homme, lead singer of Queens of the Stone Age.  And if all that's not enough, the people at Special Entertainment are allegedly working on a feature film entitled What  What (In the Butt): The Movie.  

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