10 Crazy Last-Minute Changes To Famous Music Videos

The YMCA is right up there with the Macarena and the Cha-Cha-Slide in terms of popular dance crazes that are difficult not to join in with. The chances are you’ve probably done the YMCA at least once and you first heard it at a school party and ever since then, whenever it plays at a nightclub, you can’t resist joining in.

It may come as a surprise that the simplistic arm movements were not created by The Village People and may never have existed if it wasn’t for a performance on American Bandstand in 1979. Allegedly when the group came to the chorus, they threw their hands in the air for the Y symbol and the crowd followed. But it was a group of kids in the audience who started doing additional gestures for the remaining letters.

It is unclear if they choreographed it beforehand or whether it was a moment of spontaneity but host Dick Clark was so impressed by the kids dancing that he had a sound engineer play the track again so that the members of The Village People could watch them do it. The artists learned the moves and Clark asked lead singer Victor Willis “You think you can work that into your routine?” and he replied “I think we’re going to have to”.