Dance styles have evolved through the years. There's been the Twist, the Electric Slide, and the Macarena. Most recently, a dance called "Gangnam Style" has created a worldwide craze.
And, thanks to a Bakersfield couple, "Gangnam Style" has already started to evolve with the addition of costumes, youtube.com, and a Bakersfield backdrop.
This latest one is gaining in popularity fast with nearly 900,000 views. It features a man dressed as a wizard and a woman in a long, white dress dancing and singing the lyrics, "Wizard Gandalf Style" to the beat of the original "Gangnam Style" song. It mixes the song with the movie, "Lord of the Rings."
The stars of the parody, a local couple, taped their mash-up all throughout Bakersfield.
That couple is Chad Nikolaus and Angie Griffin.
"You know that whole thing," Nikolaus says of the dance. "I've had a little bit of dance experience so that didn't take me long to learn at all."
Chad and Angie make up, what for the past two years, has been called the "Screen Team." The self-proclaimed "geeky couple" make YouTube videos, mostly parodies featuring superheroes and other fictional characters.
"So, we just went out on a limb at first and did it, you know," said Nikolaus. "We were really struggling, but it's kind of picked up steam. And, so now we are happy to say it's kind of our full-time job."
A Pokemon parody the pair did has millions of hits on YouTube.
Their latest parody is taking off now too, showing anyone who views it Bakersfield's parks, shopping centers, and even inside a local pizza restaurant managed by Holly Purcell who was there when the fake Gandalf came in.
"He had this long beard and white beard and kind of funny looking outfit," said Purcell. "And, he just danced around me and there was a lady who was filming it and then he went out the door."
The galloping Gandalf also crossed the intersection at California and Stockdale, home of Bakersfield's Dancing Cowboy who just missed the magic.
"I mean I've seen Batman out here. I've seen the Teletubbies, um, ketchup and mustard, Bert and Ernie, but that would be new, that would be new," said the Dancing Cowboy of the dancing wizard.
New is what the "Screen Team" is about, grabbing what's getting attention and molding it to fit their own beat.
"Stay tuned. Yeah, stay tuned," said Nikolaus and Griffin.
The "Screen Team" says they have much more planned for the fall with the release of a lot of video games. To see the entire video, follow this link:
