Web Animation / Russian Dancing Men

Russian Dancing Men is (usually attributed to) a short Flash Animation made in late 2010 by MrWeebl, which is all about, well, dancing Russian men...probably. And also backed up with the titular song, set to an electronic Russian folk-esque tune, sung by an all male chorus with a highly repetitive riff and nonsensical verses. As a result, it made its way into one of its more popular and well-known videos by Weebl.

In 2012, a game about Russian Dancing Men was made for the iPhone and iPad which included a various selection of levels to play in, which were based off of his more popular videos, like Narwhals, Amazing Horse, and Kenya, for example.

Years later, a first episode of what looked like an upcoming series of the Russian Dancing Men was uploaded on April, 4, 2014, starring four specific characters. However, after 3 episodes, the series seems to have been dropped as no new episodes have been made.

---

Provides examples of:

• Americans Are Cowboys: Portrayed as such in the Winter Olympics. And because they're also fat, they go as far to refer to them as " The Pigs of Capitalism".
• Arc Words: "Brothers", "comrades", and the like.
• Catchphrase: "I BLAME THE CAPITALIST PIG(S)!"
  • Generally followed by a "And I blame comrade Sergey for [doing X to lead the Dancing Men into a picky situation]!", usually from Dimitry.
• The Charmer: If Suave Boris's name is anything to go by and is also the only one who doesn't have a Russian accent. He's also probably The Ace.
  • Subverted with the fact that besides Olaf, even he wasn't so lucky with the ladies during episode 3.
• Chekhov's Gun: They had three! In the second episode when they were imprisoned in another country (that seems to be an expy of Ukraine... or somewhere), they were able to escape by the spoons that Sergey was using for instruments which were stuck on Olaf's feet since he gets sticky when it's too hot (yeah...). So when he danced with the spoons on his feet, they were able to dig their way back into their home.
• Cloudcuckoolander: Sergey is this, big time. Wasting the money for food to buy a bear, for starters.
  • For that matter, the whole dance troupe could fall into this.
• Dirty Communists: In which it's portrayed a bit more affably than most examples. Their Great Leader on the other hand...
• Funetik Aksent: The clips for the game. Its subtitles have a field day with their pronunciation of words containing "ng".
• Gagging on Your Words: Great Leader cannot bring himself to say the word "peace".
• Glorious Leader: The Great Leader. Even fitting is that he obviously has plans invading the neighboring country but insists it was just a misunderstanding.
• Glorious Mother Russia: How they do love her.
• Gratuitous Russian: The liberated use of the Cyrillic Alphabet on English words notwithstanding.
• Husky Russkie: Most of them talk like and sound like one but with a few exceptions.
• I Need a Freaking Drink: The Twist Ending in the game when Sergey points out that Lenin's waxy corpse was the one who set up all the obstacles. When asked how he knew that, he reveals himself to be a top KGB spy called, Olaf Spies-a-lotski. The resulting confusion prompts Dimitry to say:
  (Beat) I need vodka!
• Large Ham: Given that they like to portray the Russians as such.
• Living Prop/The Quiet One: Suave Boris along with Eyes Always Shut and is rarely seen moving or interacting with them. But we do hear what seemed to be his voice in the game trailer which is how it's found out that he noticeably lacks a Russian accent.
• Mother Russia Makes You Strong: Their main motivation, obviously.
• Move Along, Nothing to See Here: Exaggerated with the Russians invading and the people of Uchekivstan are clearly taking notice.
  Guard: Hey, are you invading?
  Russian: (riding a tank) Nyet! I am just walking my dog.
  Guard: You look like you invading!
  Russian: Do not shout! You're upsetting my dog!
  Guard: It looks like a tank!
  Russian: It is fat dog.

  Uchekivstan Leader: THE RUSSIANS ARE TRYING TO INVADE AGAIN!
  Russian: (a tank with a tree drawn on it between two bushes as the Russian hides in one of them) Nyet! I am bush. Please be ignoring me. Rustle, rustle.
  • In the end, it's persisted by their Great Leader when a tank falls into the hole they made escaping from prison.
  (tank falls into a hole)
  Great Leader: That was a mole.
• Never Bareheaded: They ditch the hats in favor of summer time though.
• Odd Name Out: Not in-universe, though. Many point out that "Olaf" is definitely not a Russian name.
• One Head Taller: Boris, to the other three Russian Dancing Men.
• Only Sane Man: Dmitri, despite just as being out of it as his "comrades" but it's clear that he's together enough to rein them in. An ambiguous example would be Boris, due to his semi-Living Prop status.
• Only Six Faces: Subverted. They all have mustaches and wearing nothing but red and black. But if you look closely, they all have different facial designs and even shapes of mustaches.
• Real Men Wear Pink: Ballet is considered as this in episode three. The men attempted to take lessons in order to be manlier.
• Red Scare: Their color palette contains mostly red and black or any other variation, off-putting due to the use of its trope, it's everywhere, and it hurts the eyes the longer you stare at it.
• Refuge in Audacity:
  • Episode two is being called out in the comments how it's seem to be referring to the Russian invasion of Crimea while some are just finding their way to tell them to settle down and enjoy the video, regardless of what it could be poking fun at.
  • There's also the Winter Olympics episode, which even involves the Olympic stadium being said that "It is if it was thrown together in a great hurry!" most likely in reference to how fast and shoddy the construction for Sochi was.
• Running Gag: Their lack of food.
• Russian Reversal: In the music video, phrases in this form are written in some of the backgrounds.
• Self-Deprecation: When you look at the portrayal of the British/English in the first episode who were introduced as "the capitalist pigs" (which is their all-around catchphrase), and remembering who the creator was, the use of this trope just comes altogether.
• Team Pet: The bear Sergey bought in the first episode has become this.
• That Russian Squat Dance: But of course.
• Verbal Tic: "-ski" sometimes being inserted in normal words that would make it more "Russian" just for the funsies.
• Vodka Drunkenski: Surprisingly not as prevalent as many would expect (considering the many Russian stereotypes it has already crammed in). If anything, they'll only pull one vodka joke and that's it. But it's hinted that they drink it, so it's still played straight though implicitly.
• A Winner Is You: Said word per word when the Russian Dancing Men won the Winter Olympics in the first episode. Also, for winning, they only got paper medals. The plan was was when they win, they would sell the medals for food.
• Word Salad Lyrics: The song itself, which had mentions of dancing with a purple hen, having a ballpoint pen, among others. Also, just to find a rhyme for "men".
• World of Ham

---