While working on a different project involving Pixar films, I stumbled upon a group of people who dedicate entire days of their lives to re-purposing footage from "Monster's University" into pseudo music videos all starring Dean Hardscrabble - the villainous head of academics in Pixar's 2013 prequel to "Monsters Inc."
If you haven't seen the movie this trend will make even less sense, so let's recap. "Monsters University" follows the freshman antics of Mike and Sully, the two protagonists from "Monsters Inc.", as each struggles to be successful either academically or socially on campus.
Their nemesis is Dean Hardscrabble - a terrifying academic authority who believes monsters who aren't scary are effectively worthless.
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The general badassery of Hardscrabble combined with a creative design and stunning animation might be why some people took a liking to the character. She is certainly a unique female character when it comes to Pixar films, and having the voice of Helen Mirren doesn't hurt when it comes to attracting admirers.
The first video I watched was created by YouTuber xSoulKitty and titled "RINGLEADER }} dean hardscrabble." The video, uploaded in 2013, features Britney Spears' hit song "Circus" playing over spliced together clips of Dead Hardscrabble, all edited with a sort of honeycombed filter overlay.
Watch it here:
The description reads:
"HUGE SPOILERS FOR MU ["Monster's University"] OBVIOUSLY
ok so i spent a SH-T TON OF TIME ON THIS like 3 days straight so please comment im begging u
i could go ON AND ON about abby but im keeping it on my tumblr hehehaha"
xSoulKitty (who has a total of four Hardscrabble remix videos) is not alone in their efforts to idolize Hardscrabble's characters. The first page of results for "Dean Hardscrabble" on YouTube brought me to user Griffin-Richi-Richi's take on Hardscrabble.
This music video is set to an Evanescence song, and has a much darker tone. Take a look:
We have so many questions. (None of which are going to be answered anytime soon.) But let's press forward into the wonderfully weird world of Hardscrabble memes.
Our next stop is Tumblr, home to fan art and reimaginings of Hardscrabble as everything from a baby to a disgruntled emo teenager.
Here's "Dean Hardscrabble wearing Alexander McQueen."
There's a lot of shipping between Dean Hardscrabble and other monsters in the Pixar universe.
So in case you were worried the internet is getting boring or predictable, know that surprising pockets of memedom await - whether it's fan art of obscure (and underrated) Pixar villains or conspiracy theories about dead gorillas.