Happy Dance



""Scuse me while I do my happy dance!""

- Oghren, Dragon Age Origins

This trope is, well... a dance that a character does when they're happy! Maybe it's time to celebrate. Maybe it's time to make themselves feel better. Maybe they just want to pat themselves on the back. Whatever the reason may be, they quickly bust a couple of moves. The Happy Dance! Also known as a victory dance.

May even be a signature moment for the character (for example, this picture may seem awfully familiar). See also Victory Pose.

Contrast Angry Dance.

Anime and Manga

 * In Dragonball Z, Captain Ginyu performs a Dance of Joy for Frieza.
 * Well, he tried. All things considered we shouldn't blame Frieza for refusing this *ahem* generous offer.
 * "What's goin' on!? It's the Daddy Dance!" Performed when Koiwai finished a big work project (see chapter 11).
 * One Piece's Chopper has a trademark happy dance which he burst into every time someone gives him a compliment. He tries to act like he doesn't want their praise, and calls them assholes while wiggling his hips and grinning ear-to-ear.
 * Ryuk + apple = this, in the second intro.
 * In Yu-Gi-Oh!! Capsule Monsters, Joey and Tristan do a silly victory dance a couple of times.
 * In GetBackers, Ginji occasionally does a happy-happy dance by going chibi and waving victory fans.
 * Pokémon: Ash's Totodile always seemed to be in a Happy Dance sort of mood.
 * Not to mention Misty's Togepi.

Comicbooks
"Target: Not the Snoopy Dance!"
 * From the Doug Ten Napel's short comic Solomon Fix: "Happy coupon dance! Happy coupon dance!" ... "Second half of the happy coupon dance! Second half of the happy coupon dance!".
 * Example and Shout-Out in Fuzzy Knights: Ben does a victory dance after a successful roll.

Film

 * Koskov's Narm-inducing dance in The Living Daylights.
 * Walter Huston's dance from Treasure of the Sierra Madre, echoed and parodied repeatedly in City Slickers 2: The Legend of Curly's Gold.
 * The Party has an entire group of people do this when the Russian ballet troupe arrives, though Peter Sellers' character (who has just saved a girl from her creepy Hollywood agent) exhibits the most excellent example.
 * Done to very disturbing effect by Mr. Blonde in Reservoir Dogs.
 * Do the Dance in Evan Almighty.
 * The "Tequila" dance in Pee-Wee Herman's Big Adventure.
 * The 2010 Alice in Wonderland: " I shall futterwacken... vigorously.
 * The Mamushka from the Addams Family movie. As crazy as you would expect any tradition of that family to be and utterly awesome.
 * Possible Trope Namer from Baseketball. Coop is forced to do the happy dance when depressed.
 * Les Grossman has one at the end of Tropic Thunder after

Literature

 * It's mentioned at the end of Isard's Revenge that Wedge was so happy to find that Wes Janson hadn't died at around the book's midpoint that he performed an "Ewok dance of joy".
 * Nikki does a "Happy Snoopy Dance" in The Dork Diaries.
 * Referenced in Jeeves and Wooster a couple times; Bertie tends to be rather demonstrative when sudden joy hits him.

Live Action TV
"Kari: Not what you expected, huh?"
 * Balki's Dance of Joy from Perfect Strangers.
 * Turk from Scrubs has many of these (including the "you are so getting a piece of this" dance, the "there's a sale on lotion" dance and the "I'm gonna cut you open" dance). At one point, JD is shown to have a Happy Dance coach.
 * Elliot has, on two occassions, displayed her "I Told You So" dance.
 * Five, Six, Seven, Eight! No more alimony! No more alimony! No more alimony! No more alimony!
 * Numfar! Do the Dance of Joy! (from Angel)
 * At the end of "Disharmony", Wesley makes a speech about how time and space are the only things that can fix the recent rifts in Team Angel...only for Cordelia to come bounding in, squeeing over the new clothes Angel bought her. It gets funnier when Angel joins in.
 * And from Buffy the Vampire Slayer, there's Anya's "Dance of Capitalist Superiority." Xander also once does the "Snoopy Dance" for Willow.
 * Maury: You are NOT the father!
 * Ellen DeGeneres may secretly be the Anthropomorphic Personification of the Happy Dance.
 * Chandler Bing from Friends has one.
 * Martin Short's character Ed Grimley, on SCTV and Saturday Night Live, often does one upon receiving good news: "I'm going mental!"
 * James May on Top Gear does an "ancient victory dance" when he bests the others in a challenge.
 * After Kari on Myth Busters finished constructing a pole for an experiment, she celebrated by doing her "pole dance". It turned out to be a Happy Dance.


 * In the episode where the guys tested Latex Perfection, Adam did a lot of Happy Dances while disguised as Jamie in order to have fun with his image as The Comically Serious.
 * Parker did a version of this after getting the dagger in "The Rashomon Job" on Leverage.
 * On The Late Late Show, whenever Craig Ferguson brings out Secretariat, EVERYBODY dances!!!
 * Monk does the jig after solving the case in "Mr. Monk Gets Fired".
 * In Phil of the Future, Phil and Keely each do one of these after they make plans to go to the dance together in "Get Ready To Go Go".
 * Malcolm in the Middle -- "Happy dance, happy dance, we love to do the happy dance."
 * "Happier!!"
 * LazyTown: "Bing Bang DIGGARIGGADONG!"
 * Spaced has a standard Happy Dance routine that crops up a few times to the exact same tune -- walk jauntily down the street, click heels, head a football that flies out of nowhere, hug bewildered stranger. Tim does it, later in the episode Brian tries but manages to mess up every step. In a later episode, Tim and Bilbo do it side by side.
 * Ba Wool from Flower Boy Ramyun Shop does a happy dance after he gets a kiss on the cheek from Soo Yi. Eun Bi smacks him around the head for being stupid.

Newspaper Comics

 * The current page image is Snoopy's iconic Happy Dance.
 * Dilbert and Wally have done "victory dances" at work, incorporating such moves as Russian-dancing kicks and "turbo mooning."
 * Garfield does this occasionally, like when he hears the automatic can opener.

Sports

 * These are very much employed by NFL players (often called Endzone Dances), despite the heavy fines that are handed down from the No Fun...err...National Football League.

Video Games

 * In Sonic Adventure, the Chao combine a Happy Dance with some G-Rated Sex.
 * Kirby does one of these at least once per game (and often temporarily spawns duplicates during the dance).
 * Many characters do this when they make a touchdown in Backyard Football.
 * Crash Bandicoot in some games when he gets a gem or relic.
 * A Hollow Man in Fable 2 yearned to have one of these but got instead the "Hollow Dance of Ur'Cyrandorandorander". Even he can't pronounce it right.
 * Some Final Fantasy games had this upon winning a battle, especially the older ones.
 * Whenever your captain in Spore: Galactic Adventures completes an adventure succesfully, this is what he'll do. He sometimes even moonwalks. As anyone can create an adventure, this has been lampshaded more than once in adventures that have been made.
 * Moses Happy Dance! YEEEHAW!
 * The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker: Link will dance with joy when he beats a boss.
 * Luigi is known far more than Mario for his Happy Dance, especially in the Mario & Luigi series where it reaches hilarious levels of Narm Charm.
 * One of Oghren's random battle quotes at the end of a successful battle. (He doesn't actually dance though)
 * Raz of Psychonauts has one in which he "walks like an Egyptian" while bobbing his head all the while singing a little tune. He got it off a bully, with the first time he does the dance being when he knocks said bully off grind rails.
 * Multiple exist in the Jak and Daxter series:
 * In Jak and Daxter The Precursor Legacy the titular heroes do an elaborate victory dance after they've defeated the Big Bad. Daxter will do various dances (including the robot, pirouettes and a butt-waggle) after they've collected a powercell.
 * In Jak II Renegade Daxter starts to do one after they've completed their first mission, but is interrupted when the place crumbles.
 * And at the end of Jak 3 Daxter does another one when he finds out that.

Webcomics
"Elan: Yeah, I'm doin' the Gainful Employment Dance! Yeah I am! Look at me! Look at me!
 * The captain's Happy Dance in Schlock Mercenary was so prevalent, that when he is gone for a while, the team points correctly points out when he would have been doing the dance.
 * Dominic Deegan - Grenchka learns from Dominic that the "Butcher", the bogeyman of the orcs, is dead, and asks him to cover his eyes so she can sing "Iakka takka" (happy dance) and do a little jig. The reason she asks him to cover his eyes is because, and while he does so, he gripes, "I can still hear you."
 * Suicide for Hire: Hunter's Happy Gun Dance, done upon realising that he's gotten away with buying guns with a fake ID.
 * Victory Dance! Problem Sleuth gained a level!
 * Questionable Content has Happy Dances from Steve and Ellen, Marten (offscreen), Dora and Marten, Marigold, and Angus twice.
 * In On the Origin Of PCs, Elan does one of these after Roy hires him for his adventuring party.

Roy: Why do I get the feeling that when future historians look back on my life, they'll pinpoint this exact moment as when everything began to really go downhill for me?"


 * In Sinfest, Tangerine does a Hoodie Dance because she really likes her hoodie.

Web Original

 * Both John and Hank Green of the Vlog Brothers have their own happy dances. They are generally performed when good things happen.
 * Doctor Steel jauntily dances at the end of Episode 1 of The Dr. Steel Show. There is also a section on his website where you can make him do several dance moves to some old-timey music. In Caleb Allen's Fan Vid of "Lament for a Toy Factory", the actor playing Dr. Steel breaks into these dance moves as the helicopter spotlight hits him - and the music from the website begins to play.
 * On a Donation Drive video, The Nostalgia Critic gleefully victory dances after he got Christopher Lloyd to say "I was frozen today". It's ridiculously adorable.
 * The Nostalgia Chick does this too after she decides she enjoys doing movies other than girly ones, and hers is the "frolicking in a field" variety.
 * Dragon Ball Abridged's Captain Ginyu not only has the Dance of Joy, under orders from King Kold to perform every successful mission, but also the Daddy's Little Princess Dance, under Kooler's orders, the Dance of Cheering You Up for when Frieza's attempt to use the Dragon Balls fails, and finally, the Dance of Solitude!

Western Animation
""Go Beast Boy, go Beast Boy, you're probeless, no probes now, go Beast Boy, go Beast Boy, get funkyyy...""
 * In the episode of Family Guy where Peter finds out his father has died, Lois and Brian calmly walk outside and break into a quick Happy Dance before coming back inside to console him.
 * Lois's (insanely rich) aunt died in an earlier episode, and when he finds out they were left something in her will, Peter pulls her corpse out of the casket and ballrooms with it.
 * Teen Titans:

"Huey: Granddad, Riley's doing the celebratory booty dance."
 * The most wonderful thing about tiggers...
 * Andy mimics the Snoopy dance at the end of one Mission Hill episode.
 * Bridgette does a particularly odd one in Total Drama World Tour during her, even calling it her "happy, happy dance".
 * Ren and Stimpy danced to "The Happy Happy Joy Joy Song" in an early episode.
 * I.R Baboon used to have one before it got phased out.
 * In The Simpsons Manjula went to see a divorce lawyer who danced happily on his desk after she told him she had eight kids.
 * Dora the Explorer: "We did it! We did it!"
 * Mickey Mouse Clubhouse: "Hot dog, hot dog, hot diggity dog!"
 * The Boondocks: "Booty dance, unh, booty dance! Booty dance, unh, booty dance!"


 * In the Phineas and Ferb episode, "The Mom Attractor", Candace does a victory dance while declaring that she's awesome. Phineas and Ferb join in on the dance as well.

Real Life

 * A non-example from WW 2 propaganda- footage of Hitler stamping his foot in joy was edited together to make it look like he was dancing.
 * Was that intended to be Genocide, unprovoked aggression, and now taking pleasure in military success?
 * More to paint him as an immature moron.
 * The online community Nerdfighters has a signature happy dance, actually called, "the happy dance." See it here.
 * Rabbits do a happy dance called a binky. They jump into the air, and kick out their legs while in the air, with or without a butt waggle.
 * And it looks extremely adorable.
 * Ferrets likewise do an adorable dance when excited. Fans have dubbed this the "Weasel War Dance", after a line from a Dilbert comic.
 * Most owners of Pembroke Welsh corgis (the tail-less kind) could probably tell you all about the happy corgi butt wiggle dance.