The Dancing Banana — also just called the banana meme — is an
animated pixel GIF created by Trym Stene in 1999: a little banana waving its arms in
celebration. One of the internet's earliest memes, later set to "Peanut Butter Jelly Time."
Download it free below, make your own, or license it.
Take it with you
Download the Dancing Banana GIF
It's the people's banana — free to download, share and embed. Every format: the original animated GIF, a transparent background version (GIF and PNG, no background), and a 2000px HD remaster.
Need the dancing banana PNG? The transparent PNG is a single still frame with no background —
right for avatars, print and thumbnails. The transparent GIF keeps the dance and the
see-through background, so it drops onto any colour. All free, no signup, no watermark.
Want it as a dancing banana emoji for Discord, Slack or Telegram? Grab the transparent version.
Or put it on every screen you own with the free wallpapers.
Hats, shades, moustaches, captions, disco mode — dress the banana up and it's yours.
Download it as a free animated emoji or meme, or get it mailed to your door
as a real vinyl sticker.
Stickers from $14.99 · free shipping worldwide · or meet the banana of the day
The story
Who made the Dancing Banana?
I did — Trym Stene, back in 1999, on an AMD K6-2 running at a
blistering 350MHz, using Animation Shop (the little tool bundled with Paint Shop Pro). It started as a
"celebration" emoticon I'd post on web forums — and somehow it never stopped dancing.
Read the full story
I grew up in rural Norway, without many people around who were into the same things, so I made silly
digital stuff to amuse myself and the people I met on internet forums and IRC. The banana became my
little "celebration" emoji — I'd post it on the forums whenever I finished something new. I made other animations
too, an angry toaster, a melting ice-cream cone with big sad eyes — but none of them had whatever the
banana had.
Before Flash took over, I actually made a bit of money drawing animated GIF ad-banners for people I
met on IRC — about $25 a pop (250 kroner), though cashing a foreign check ate a chunk
of that. Then Flash arrived, The Buckwheat Boyz set a version to
"Peanut Butter Jelly Time," and the banana took on a life of its own — eventually
even turning up in Family Guy.
The usual questions
Dancing Banana FAQ
What is the dancing banana meme?
It's an animated pixel banana that waves its arms and dances — one of the internet's first memes, created by Trym Stene in 1999. People also call it "the banana meme" or the "Peanut Butter Jelly Time banana."
What is the dancing banana called?
A few names for the same 1999 GIF: the Dancing Banana, "the banana meme," and — after the Flash version set to that song — the "Peanut Butter Jelly Time banana." All the same dancing pixel banana I made.
What does the dancing banana mean?
It started as a "celebration" emoji — I'd post it whenever I finished something. These days it's shorthand for pure joy, silliness, or "it's [something] time!" energy.
Who made the Dancing Banana GIF?
I did — Trym Stene. I animated it in 1999 in Animation Shop. I don't still have the original file as a smoking gun, but the story's been picked up by USA Today, Fandom, City AM and others.
When was the Dancing Banana created?
Around 1999. I made loads of GIFs in those years, but this one shone the brightest.
Where did the dancing banana come from?
From me — Trym Stene — in 1999. I drew it as a little "celebration" emoji to post on web forums whenever I finished something. It spread from there, and a later Flash version set to "Peanut Butter Jelly Time" carried it worldwide.
Related, but not the same. I made the banana in 1999; later, others set it to The Buckwheat Boyz' song "Peanut Butter Jelly Time" in a Flash animation — the song and that Flash are their creators'. That version even escaped onto TV: NBC's Ed showed it in 2002, and in 2005 Family Guy put Brian in the banana suit. Who made what →
Is the dancing banana copyrighted?
Yes — I created it in 1999 and hold the rights. It's free to enjoy and share for personal, non-commercial fun; commercial use needs a licence.
Free to enjoy, share and remix for fun. For commercial use you'll need a license —
and yes, that includes crypto/token projects, on stricter terms. I license the original directly,
no middlemen, quoted per project.
A huge thank you to the meme community for all the Dancing Banana remixes over the years — the
warrior banana, the jedi banana, dancing Mario, all of them. The full banana meme gallery has
266 of them, rateable in bananas and free to download.
