March 17: Trucker's Hitch

I ended up down another rabbit's hole doing research for Jeo-Party, this time all about knots. We've had this idea for a category called "Very Knotty" (a play on the word "naughty") for awhile now, and I finally decided to create it. I found an absolutely delightful website called animatedknots.com that lists all kinds of knots, each accompanied by a picture, instructional video, description, history, variations, and fun facts. (The guy leading the instructional video has a delightful British accent.... learning about anything is definitely way more enjoyable with an accent).  I started clicking on all kinds of different knots to learn more about them, hoping to find at least 5 that had interesting facts or origin stories that I could use for Jeo-Party, and I happily did! 

My favorite discovery was about the Trucker's Hitch. On animatedknots.com, they mention the rise in popularity of the knot after the release of a youtube video by Ylvis (the Norwegian comedy duo responsible for the viral video, "What Does the Fox Say?"). I had seen the Fox video before, but it was not really my cup of tea (the sounds of the fox in the video are super annoying... which is actually kinda funny because a real fox does have a creepily annoying voice). I had never even heard of this other video that Ylvis created, an amazingly delightful music video called "Trucker's Hitch" which ends with a choreographed dance to the tying the complicated knot. It is an incredibly clever and hilarious song, and I could not believe that this is where the rabbit hole landed me. It is definitely one of my new favorite songs. 

Fun facts: 

The Fox song ranked #1 on Norway's equivalent of the Billboard Top 100 and the Trucker's Hitch song ranked #10. 

On the Ellen DeGeneres Show, they mention that the word for taking a hit of marijuana in Norway is the word "Fox". They also mention that they were purposely trying to make a bad music video for the launch of the 3rd season of their talk show in Norway, and it backfired. 

Ylvis also wrote a song about "Massachusetts" which is hilarious and so very random considering these guys are from Norway! It has a very "musical theater" vibe and reminds me of songs from the Book of Mormon, which makes sense because these guys are a fun musical comedy duo just like Matt Stone and Trey Parker (writers of The Book of Mormon and South Park). 

With delight,

♥Jamie