The 42-Year-Old Sequel Nobody's Heard Of Invented A Phrase We All Use Today

Published Sep 20, 2026, 10:23 AM EDT

Zach Moser has been writing for ScreenRant since 2022, covering movies, classic TV, and streaming TV. His areas of expertise cover a wide range of genres with a particular interest in horror and drama, and the conversations around the TV and film industry. When he's not covering the latest film releases or chronicling the latest season of a new show, he's writing humor pieces for McSweeney's Internet Tendency, Slackjaw, and Points In Case or working on short stories and his second novel. 

A 42-year-old sequel I defy anyone to say they have seen is actually the source of a phrase that is all too common in online discourse. You never know what's going to inspire a meme, a popular phrase, or an internet joke. They can come from the most popular film of the year, or a completely unknown straight-to-video movie.

Whether it be Jurassic Park leading to "clever girl" GIFs in the depths of a Reddit thread or Morbius leading to the ever-relevant, "It's [x]-ing time!", a stock joke can come from a production of any quality. Sometimes, it's even better when the phrase comes from somewhere unknown.

Look at the phrase appendage, "[x] 2: Electric Boogaloo", a silly popular phrase you can attach to a film, person, or even concept whenever it appears that thing is repeating itself. You may have thought that was spun out of the ether, a goofy rhyme coupling stemming from the "2" of the joke, signifying a sequel, but it's actually from a real film.

Breakin' 2: Electric Boogaloo is a real movie that came out in 1984 as a sequel to the breakdancing-themed musical Breakin' that came out just a few months earlier. While Joel Silberg handled the first film, Sam Firstenberg was in the director's chair for the sequel. There was also a third film, Rappin', but that may be even less known than the second movie.

In Breakin' 2, the three break-dancers from the original film have to put their heads and dance moves together in order to stop the demolition of a community center by an evil developer who wants a shopping mall. You could not think of a more '80s plot for a movie if you tried.

The Breakin' Sequel Made A Huge Contribution To Movie Culture

Credit: MovieStillsDb

Breakin' 2: Electric Boogaloo is almost an unknown film, save for the three quarters of the title that are etched into the cultural lexicon. The phrase "[x] 2: Electric Boogaloo is a snowclone, a phrasal template that uses a well-known phrase or saying and substitutes a new word to express a similar idea in a new context.

Think of how the line "In space, no one can hear you scream," from Alien has become a snowclone, with people replacing the word "scream" with any number of things someone may do. 2: Electric Boogaloo is usually used as a way to denote an imagined or obvious sequel that is even more absurd than the first.

This doesn't even have to be a movie, and the joke has had a long shelf-life as a darkly humorous way to denote a world event that seems to be happening again. You might refer to the current war between the U.S. and Iran as "Gulf War 2: Electric Boogaloo". Electric boogaloo is a phrase that is itself borrowed, and East Coasters may know it better as electric boogie. It's a specific kind of hip-hop dance style that became a signature of the 1970s dance group, the Electric Boogaloos (via HipHopCongress).

Remember the song "Electric Boogie" by Marcia Griffith, with the repeated response line, "It's electric! Boogie-woogie-woogie"? That's the electric boogaloo we're talking about.

Breakin' 2: Electric Boogaloo Wasn't A Complete Flop

Credit: MovieStillsDB

Beyond inspiring a phrase heard around the world, from an episode of It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia ("Chardee MacDennis 2: Electric Boogaloo") to the comment section under any Reddit news article, Breakin' 2: Electric Boogaloo was also a successful film, all things considered.

Breakin' 2: Electric Boogaloo ended up earning $15.1 million at the box office, three times its budget (via BoxOfficeMojo). The film has a 29% on Rotten Tomatoes, but Roger Ebert called the movie "modest", "cheerful", and "refreshing", giving it three out of four stars (via RogerEbert). Not bad for a film mostly known for its title.

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