Atomic Dog  

From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia

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"Atomic Dog" is a song by George Clinton from his 1982 album Computer Games. The track was released as a single in December of 1982 and became the P-Funk collective's last to reach #1 on the US R&B Chart. The single failed to reach the Top 100 of the Pop Chart at all, though it has arguably attained greater popular stature over the past two decades. Some have called it the greatest funk song of all time.

Atomic Dog is one of George Clinton's most heavily sampled songs, appearing in more than 50 songs, including the rapper Snoop Dogg's song "Who Am I (What's My Name)?" One of the song's lines, "bow wow wow yippie yo yippie yay" was made popular by early 90s hiphop G-funk, as it was interpolated in Dr. Dre's song "Fuck wit Dre Day (And Everybody's Celebratin')" and other songs by Snoop Dogg and Bow Wow.

Appearances

• Professional wrestler Junk Yard Dog used the song as his theme music during his pre-WWF career.
• The song appears on the soundtrack of the 1999 movie 10 Things I Hate about You
• In 1994 the song was used in the movie PCU
• The song was used as the opening theme for 102 Dalmatians.
• MC Hammer samples it on his song Pumps and a Bump
• Ice Cube sampled the song on his "My Summer Vacation" on Death Certificate
• Nas sampled the song on his "The American Way" on Street's Disciple
• It was briefly used in a scene in Joe Dirt
• The song was used as a jingle in a 1996 McDonald's advertisement for the promotion of the live version of 101 Dalmatians
• The song was used in an episode of The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air when Will tries to do a striptease in front of wealthy women.
• This song appears in the opening of the movie See Spot Run
• This song is playing when Caine and his cousin Harold are enter a party the night Caine graduates from high school in the film Menace II Society
• This song has become over the years the unofficial theme song for the Omega Psi Phi Fraternity, Inc.
• The song is ironically juxtaposed with an illegal dogfight in a third season episode of The Wire. The character Country is defined by a love of funk.
• The song was used during a scene in "Radar Love", a second season episode of the short-lived science fiction series Dark Angel. In the scene, Joshua, a half man/half dog genetic mutant, roams the streets.
• 'Atomic Dog' was the handle used by anti-abortion extremist and convicted murderer James Kopp in online correspondence.
• X-Clan sampled the song on "Earth Bound" on the album "To The East, Blackwards"
• The "bow wow wow" line was sampled for the Danish radio show Tæskeholdet, which featured among others, famous Danish show man Casper Christensen, Mads Vangsø and Jan Gintberg
• Rap group Insane Clown Posse sampled the song for the title track of Dog Beats, one of their early albums. At the time, they were known as Inner City Posse.
• This song appears on the Soundtrack to the 2004 movie Garfield: The Movie.