In popular culture, few characters are as polarizing as Crazy Frog. Some find it endearing, this small animated creature mimicking motorbike sounds and strutting around to the tune of the Beverly Hills Cop theme, "Axel F."
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02-04, 2025But many consider it among the most annoying products of popular culture. Initially dubbed "The Annoying Thing," the creature was not only grating but also had a huge impact on Australian culture in the mid-2000s, making it hard to avoid. Crazy Frog's "Axel F" topped the charts in Australia and stayed there for 21 weeks, becoming the fourth highest-selling song of 2005, and thanks to promotion by mobile phone ringtone companies, it was inescapable on television, leaving any Big Brother viewer unable to escape the frog's croaking.
It wasn’t just in Australia, "Axel F" reached the top spot in over a dozen countries, its global dominance overshadowing its humble origins. "It wasn't a big project to start with," says Sigfrid Söderberg, CEO of Crazy Frog Entertainment, a key figure in bringing Crazy Frog to life in the early 2000s. "It was almost from scratch, without any big business ideas behind it. For us, it was just a fun little thing."
Its rise to fame before the social media era now seems quaint. It meant your image, sound, or video was passed from inbox to inbox as people explored how to use this remarkable new “email” technology. The grating audio of Crazy Frog mimicking motorbike sounds was already circulating online before the actual frog character came to be. A Swedish teenager named Daniel Malmedahl created the sound, titled 2TAKTARE.MP3, in 1997, and it quickly made its way into email inboxes around the world.
A few years later, Sigfrid Söderberg and his colleague Andreas Wicklund were hiring for their animation studio, Kaktus Film, when an application from Erik Wernquist landed on their desk. “On his showreel, there was a little character,” Söderberg says. “We didn’t pay too much attention to it. It was just a fun little creature. We saw the potential, but there were many things to do before that.”
Crazy Frog’s early animation was seen by a big name in the music industry, who saw the uncertain potential of the Kaktus team. “The video ended up at a record label in Berlin called Ministry of Sound,” Söderberg says. “They had a song ['Axel F'] that they thought would fit well with the character, so they asked us if we wanted to collaborate on a music video.” When "Axel F" became a global hit, no one was more surprised than the men behind the video. “We didn’t believe it at all,” Söderberg admits. “It was a low-budget music video, so we said, ‘If we can get a share of everything, we can make this video. But we just do it, and when it’s finished, we’ll send it to you. You can’t say anything about it. No feedback.’ They agreed, and then... yeah, it all went well.”
From the musicians' perspective, there was no need to provide feedback. The video was exactly what they were hoping for, and they knew they were onto something big. “When they received the video, they said they knew immediately that they had a hit,” Wicklund says. “I mean, I don’t know how you could see that. Maybe it was easier in those days because there wasn’t as much competition, and we could make some high-quality animation. We really put our heart and soul into it. We really worked hard because we wanted to make a music video that we could be proud of ourselves.”
Given that Crazy Frog was initially called "The Annoying Thing," and it was a bizarre-looking character that mimicked the grating sounds of noisy vehicles, it's not surprising that strong opposition arose. “You either hate it or you love it,” Wicklund says. “A lot of times kids loved it, but if you were a teenager or an adult, then hating the character was what you were supposed to do.” Crazy Frog's instant fame could have been devastating, as the creators were simultaneously met with extreme praise and criticism.
The Crazy Frog team was busy capitalizing on the success of the first song—they released a version of the 1969 instrumental classic “Popcorn” just three months after “Axel F”—and they didn’t have much time to let other people's opinions affect them. “It didn’t affect us that much,” Söderberg says. “We were so focused on what we were going to do next. So, the less fun feedback that we got, I think we just put it aside. We didn’t do anything wrong! We made fun music videos.” Wicklund admits that his team’s confidence in the quality of their work was also crucial for weathering the backlash. “We were always confident with the character and the music videos,” he says. “We wanted to make a fun little story, and it needed to be funny. It was all about our humor and how we made the music videos, and I think that was one of the key strengths.”
It’s one thing to be annoying. It’s another when you’re both annoying and ubiquitous—on every TV ad break, on the radio, and even in daily life whenever a phone rang—that’s when the disdain becomes more virulent. “[Axel F] came with the mobile ringtone, and we never liked that,” Söderberg says. “It was kind of forced on people. So, it’s a mix of being proud of it and also being annoyed at the backlash that we got. We just liked the character. It’s a fun and cute character. But because they played it so many times on channels like MTV, we also got a lot of backlash for that. Nowadays, we don’t have that at all because we’ve gotten rid of the parts of the project that we didn’t like. We can focus on shaping the character the way we want, and the way it is now.”
Yes, if you didn’t know, Crazy Frog hasn’t been crushed. The character’s popularity has seen a resurgence in recent years, perhaps as millennials introduce their children to a piece of their childhood, or perhaps the darn frog just has more lasting appeal than we anticipated. “It started to come back to life, and we were a bit surprised because [we thought] we were done with that chapter,” Wicklund says. “We were still very aware of its potential and how good of a character it was and the reach it could have, but we didn’t think too much about it until we found out that it was actually starting to become popular. That’s when the nostalgia era started.”
Crazy Frog clearly has plenty of life left. At the time of writing, the video for “Axel F” has reached 5 billion views on YouTube, with another 13 videos exceeding 100 million views. It has 500,000 followers on TikTok, with short videos appealing to a wider audience. Creative people often prefer looking forward to reflecting, which can lead to a challenging relationship with nostalgia. But Söderberg and Wicklund are enjoying the opportunity to continue creating with Crazy Frog, this time entirely on their own terms. “We had time to prepare for what we wanted the character to be in a bigger universe,” Wicklund says. “Back then, everything just happened, and we just went with it. We had a number one hit, and then [second single] ‘Popcorn.’ We just adapted to the situation. Now, we can do it the way we really want. We are so thankful that we got a second chance to revisit the character and really present it the way we want.”
In terms of lessons learned from the Crazy Frog experience, both men agree on a simple conclusion: virality can't be manufactured. “These things are hard to plan,” Söderberg says. “If you try to make a grand plan about how to do it, it might not happen. There was no plan from the beginning, it was a fun little project, and the reason it blew up was that everyone involved—from Erik who created the character to the people who made the music, and us who created the world of Crazy Frog and the music videos—were doing it for fun, without any expectations. When you really do something for the fun of creating it, that's when you can have something that really works.”
The team has since been contacted by many clients looking to go viral, and their answer is always the same. “We get asked, ‘We’re thinking of creating a character that we want to go viral,’ and we say, ‘It doesn’t work like that,’” Wicklund says. “It’s really in the hands of the fans or the people who are watching it. There’s something deep inside people that resonates, and then it starts to spread. It’s hard to analyze what will work for people because it’s a combination of the society of today, everyone’s lives, and what you can relate to. My advice is to really believe in your own talent and what you want to do, and then just do it. Create for yourself first, and then hopefully, other people will like it too.”
