Hmm... Cheezedog used to have the entire history of AYB up on birdlung.com, but I can't find it there now. Luckily, I saved it!! And I don't mind spamming this thread!
This is the main part of it:
"All your base are belong to us" is what the Zero Wing fad is
referred to as. It stems from The Laziest Men On Mars song,
"The Invasion of the Gabber Robots" merged with a Flash animation
that BAD_CRC did. Below is a chronology of events leading up to
and beyond the phenomenon.
(This history is based upon, and copies with permission, from the
RetroGames historical document by TV's Ian, located at
http://hubert.retrogames.com/history.htm . This section is not
meant to be a complete history of missives, but the all-important
gist. Really - you should visit the Retrogames one also.)Before you read on, you should also view the catchy Shockwave
Flash video that's caused Zero Wing to become a bonafide FAD:
http://www.fffever.com/AYB2.swf
or
http://www.scene.org/redhound/AYB.swf
or
http://www.stileproject.com/base.html
The Particulars-
1989: Taito releases Toaplan's Zero Wing into arcades.
1991: The UK Megadrive gets the poorly translated
"Engrish" version
1995: Toaplan goes bankrupt. Batsugun is their last game.
Early 1998: The Zero Wing animated .GIF is posted on Zany
Video Game Quotes. It begins slowly circulating the
internet. (
http://zanyvg.overclocked.org)
March 2000: Toaplan.com - a well-done fan site opens its doors.
The site is SO well made that people mistake it for
the "official" Toaplan web site! (see 1995 above)
June 5, 2000: The Zero Wing Dub Project is posted at
OverClocked. This consists of a parody comic that
makes fun of the game's poor translation, as well
as a Quicktime .mov file featuring badly
impersonated voices. Check it out at these URLs.
http://www.overclocked.org/OCzerowing.htm
http://www.overclocked.org/OCalloscar.htm
Fall 2000: According to one visitor, AYBABTU began appearing
on Stile Project as the title for and within some
images. (
http://www.stileproject.com - Warning, not
for younger viewers)
Sep - Oct 2000: The forums at Lowtax's Something Awful
(
http://www.somethingawful.com) start to get
infected. A gimmick poster there, going by the
name of Alf no less, posts a picture of Alf on
the phone. User Starscream adds a speech bubble
saying "All your base are belong to us." It's a
hit, and gets posted a few more times. A few people
link back to the Overclocked dub.
November 2000: The Something Awful era really gets into gear and
the photoshopping goes into full swing. A thread
is posted - The title is "ALL YUOR BASE ARE BELONG
TO US!!" (yes, it was spelled "YUOR"). The first
image (Army of Darkness) was done by Starscream
(again!). Around page 10, word begins to spread.
Some sites temporarily add AYBABTU to their pages
as an "official" link. The forum at HardOCP
(
www.hardforum.com) gets its own insanely popular
picture thread - 2000+ posts. Dr. Eldarion opens the
first two Cafe Press (
http://www.cafepress.com)
stores during this time. The Something Awful thread
actually goes to over 30 pages and the server whigs
out. Postings disappear, the thread is "hacked"
closed.
Nov. 14, 2000: JRR, one of the SA forum regulars, releases Invasion
of the Gabber Robots, the Zero Wing remix. This is
the catchy tune heard in the Flash animation. You
can listen to it and visit their mp3.com site here:
http://www.mp3s.com/tlmom
Nov. 28, 2000: Ars Technica (
http://www.arstechnica.com, a well know
"geek" news site posts election coverage and wrap ups.
"All your votes are belong to us!!" is the tag line.
Dec. 16, 2000: Tribal War's (
http://www.tribalwar.com/) thread
begins.
Jan. 12, 2001: Part 4 of "A Winner Is You," Hubert's game quote
based storyline is posted. It passes completely
beneath the pop culture radar. View it here:
http://hubert.retrogames.com/awinnerisyou.htm)
Jan. 14, 2001:
www.Solidsharkey.com puts up a history. The Genesis
version of Zero Wing was NOT a US release. In
English, it was released only in the UK and South
America for their Megadrive (Genesis) systems.
Feb. 11, 2001: Eskimo Bob (
http://www.eskimobob.com/), episode 12
- a precursor to the Flash Animation yet to come?
Feb. 13, 2001:
www.memepool.com posts about AYBABTU. They link to
the Tribal War thread. In the "in" circles, the fad
takes off again.
Feb. 15, 2001: Bad_CRC of Tribal War releases the Flash music video.
There are some copyright issues and a quickly updated
version with credits is released. It spreads like
wildfire and delivers Toaplan's Zero Wing unto the
masses.
Feb. 16, 2001: The "phenomenon" begins. Message boards, call-in
shows, and pop-culture cannot escape.
Feb. 19, 2001: Work on this FAQ begins. Zero Wing has a notable lack
of coverage on GameFAQs.com and this document's
author seeks to change that.
Late Feb. 2001: The San Francisco Chronicle (both print & web versions)
runs a story about AYBABTU. OverClocked prints another
Zero Wing comic. Sluggy Freelance (2/26) runs a comic.
Salon.com runs their own AYBABTU story. UK's The
Register (
http://www.theregister.com) runs a story.
NewsBytes (
http://www.newsbytes.com) runs a story. A
caller into the syndicated radio show, "Loveline,"
mentions AYBABTU (2/22/2001) - Check out the Retrogames
history (
http://hubert.retrogames.com/history.htm) for
mp3's. TechTV and Wired.com run stories. Even User
Friendly (
http://www.userfriendly.org) gets into the
act! Time Magazine (2/26) runs a story. GameSpot
(
http://www.gamespot.com) runs an AYBABTU poll on
their videogames page. Somebody chalks "All Your Base
Are Belong to Us" on the roof of Wean Hall at Carnegie
Mellon University. The AYBABTU fad is getting way,
way overdone.
Feb. 27, 2001: MP3.com pulls "Invasion of the Gabber Robots" from
their site, citing copyright infringement. They quickly
put it back up once they realize that Toaplan no longer
exists.
Feb. 28, 2001: AYBABTU debuts at #46 on the Lycos 50 as a bonafide web
fad. Toaplan, T.L.M.O.M, the flash animation, and this
FAQ are all cited. Yet ANOTHER User Friendly strip. UK's
"The Guardian" (
http://www.guardian.co.uk) runs a story.
Feb/Mar 2001: A rash of AYBABTU taggings, defacements, and banner
raisings occurs. The Georgia Tech, U. of Pennsylvania
and Texas A&M capmuses experience leaflet and poster
campaigns. Someone hacks the Dutch Railways web site
to say the phrase, "All your trains are belong to us."
Similarly, the dutch postal code web site gets tagged
with the phrase "All your postcode are belong to us!!"
The folks from the Netherlands musn't have much to do,
as the Dutch Euro site was tagged with "All your Euros
are belong to us!!" In the meantime, freaks hang banners
from bridges in Australia and California, USA. AYBABTU
is painted on Coolidge Bridge in Northampton, Mass. A
laserprinted banner even appears in the windows of the
Angelfire home office. At one University of California
campus, someone even found the time to pilfer rock from
a rock garden to make a huge ground pattern of "All your
base are belong to us" Etc. Etc., people are nuts.
March 1, 2001: The Detroit Free Press (print and WWW -
www.freep.com)
ran a story and even quoted this FAQ! "Spawn Web craze,
game does": There are inaccuracies, but nothing this
history or the Retrogames history can't resolve.
(03/01/2001 Tech section) or on the web at:
http://www.freep.com/money/tech/mwend28_20010228.htm
March 3, 2001: The Daily Mirror (
http://www.mirror.co.uk/), one of
England's most famous newspapers, runs a story. One
of Hewlett Packard's web gurus starts sprinkling
Zero Wing images across monitor advertisements. Also
if you visit the home page for Doom 3 located at
http://www.ua-corp.com/, you'll see "All your base are
belong to us!" if you highlight the entire page with
your mouse or do a "View Source." - Amusing.
March 4, 2001: In the coolest AYBABTU tagging ever, five students at
Bowling Green State University displayed the phrase
against a dormitory using ~125mW lasers. For as long
as the site remains up, check it out here:
http://avians.net/skan/aybabtu/
March 5, 2001: Ha ha! Rare's (
http://www.rareware.com) website is
currently showing "All your squirrel are belong to
Rare." if you highlight the Conker's Bad Fur Day
images. (Thanks NES Boy for this tip)
March 6-7, 2001: mp3.com includes The Laziest Men on Mars in their
newsletter. TLMOM has made more than $5,000 in
mp3.com earnings since their 'Invasion of the
Gabber Robots' was paired with Bad_CRC's flash
animation. Still, the fad is now #36 on the Lycos
50 - up 10 spots - with no sign of getting old.
March 8, 2001: Jiminy Critic (
www.jiminycritic.com) reviewed the
flash animation. You can view it, with humor, at:
http://www.jiminycritic.com/allyourbase.asp
Acclaim Sports just posted 16 new shots of their
upcoming All Star Baseball 2002. Among them, shot
13 features the AYBABTU catch phrase in a stadium
advertisement. You can check it out while it's up:
http://www.acclaimsports.com/asb2002/screenshots/13.html
Mar. 9-11, 2001: Fox News -
www.foxnews.com - runs a story both
online and on their Fox News TV network. Fox 4 News,
the Fox affiliate for the Dallas / Fort Worth area,
ran a story. They showed a few photoshopped images,
including the fake billboard featuring George W. Bush.
(Thanks Jjukil for this report) ESPN.com mentions the
fad.
March 11, 2001: Dutch National Radio played "Invasion of the Gabber
Robots" on their "Cyber Top 50." StarWars.com has
AYBABTU as a mouseover highlight on some of their
images now. Also, the WhenIGrowUp.net website
has posted a HILARIOUS AYBABTU Scooby-Doo! parody.
Check it at:
http://www.whenigrowup.net/doodads/aytabtu.html
March 12, 2001: The nationally syndicated comic FoxTrot, by Bill Adams,
includes a running "All your base are belong to us!!"
joke. The phrase is mentioned six (6) times! It
should be up on
www.foxtrot.com by the 23rd. (Thanks
to G. Landis and KhalaBlade for this tip)
March 15, 2001: The LA Times (
www.latimes.com & Print) has run a
story.
Beyond: The future is still in motion. This will update once
things calm down.
Historical documents you may wish to view:
(history)
http://hubert.retrogames.com/history.htm
(SA Pics)
http://www.planetstarseige.com/allyourbase/index2.html
(entirety)
http://www.allyourbase.net/
In conclusion: Nov. 2000, Feb. 2001, and Mar. 2001 were HUGE months
