Exploding sheep

An exploding sheep is a joke now found in many American and British video games, although it did not originate there.

The earliest well-known reference to exploding sheep in popular culture was made by Johnny Carson, in the role of psychic Carnac the Magnificent, on The Tonight Show, where Carnac predicted "Sis boom bah" and opened the sealed envelope to read, "The sound of a sheep exploding" (a video of the skit).

Another early reference was in Godmonster of Indian Flats, a 1973 science fiction movie made by Fredric Hobbs. It featured a mutated sheep as the titular monster, which grew larger throughout the movie, until it exploded in the climactic scene. A more recent source for the exploding-sheep meme is the 1987 cult film Bad Taste, directed by Peter Jackson, who later directed The Lord of the Rings film trilogy. The movie features a scene in which a sheep explodes after being hit with an errant RPG. Jackson's work is well-known in science fiction and fantasy fandom, a subculture which intersects heavily with gaming fans.

In 1998, the second volume of Jon Hasting's comic book Smith Brown Jones: Alien Accountant posited that sheep who explode are actually vampiric sheep who do not understand their transformation and therefore do not know that they should avoid sunlight. The plot of the 1999 science fiction novel Before and After by Matthew Thomas features exploding sheep in such significance that the book's cover features a sheep and the tagline "A novel featuring exploding sheep, Nostradamus, and the end of the world".

Video games featuring exploding sheep do so either as a primary element of gameplay, or as a diversion or Easter egg. The former case occurs most commonly in games which already have a large comedic element, while the latter tends to occur in games featuring a serious tone.

The following Western video games feature exploding sheep:


 * Armed and Dangerous (Planet Moon Studios) &mdash; during one mission, a drunken explosives expert trying to defuse a bomb attached to a kidnapped prize sheep accidentally sets it off.
 * Cannon Fodder (Sensible Software) &mdash; on later missions, sheep are booby-trapped with explosives.
 * Earthworm Jim 2 (Virgin Interactive) &mdash; the stage "The Villi People/Jim's now a Blind Cave Salamander!" features sheep which explode when shot.
 * No One Lives Forever (Sierra Entertainment) &mdash; the GDR research lab level holds (exploding) sheep and goat pens
 * Ratchet & Clank: Going Commando (Insomniac Games) &mdash; weapon turns enemies into sheep, then into exploding sheep
 * Revenge of the Mutant Camels (Jeff Minter) &mdash; one stage (called "Through Pastures Blue...") features sheep that spontaneously and gratuitously explode into lethal chunks of wool.
 * Sheep &mdash; many of the hazards will cause the sheep to explode.
 * SimGolf &mdash; turn the balls into exploding sheep by pressing CTRL and S and letting go, then typing BOMBSHEEP
 * Spyro the Dragon (Insomniac Games) &mdash; sheep are dragon fodder in Artisans world; at the end of the game, dragons use a sheep as a basketball; the closing credits assure us that "no sheep were harmed in making this game."
 * Worms series (Team 17) &mdash; the exploding sheep is a special weapon found in powerup crates, albeit rarely. Later sequels of the game made it a standard weapon, and introduced different variations on this weapon, such as the Super Sheep.
 * Warcraft II and Warcraft III (Blizzard Entertainment) &mdash; click on the scenery sheep (or other neutral animals) enough times and they will explode. One of the levels in the WC3 single-player campaign also contains a subgame involving exploding sheep and the movie Babe. A MMORPG based on the aftermath of these games and their expansions, World of Warcraft, also features exploding drones in the shape of sheep and has spawned guilds based around the idea,Exploding Sheep idea explodingsheep.com

There is also a screensaver, Sheep vs Gravity 1.08, which features exploding sheep, and a font named Exploding Sheep (pictured at right). Both are available as freeware. That the Exploding Sheep typeface does not signify exploding sheep except in name suggests that the meme has established itself in the software subculture beyond video games.

There was a London based rock band named Exploding Sheep which formed in 1997 and broke up in 2001.

There are two separate companies named Exploding Sheep Productions; a British one which organizes conventions and an American one which produces engineering models.