Meet Merlysha Pierre, a 19-year-old TikToker from Miami who's been reminding people about the bops that came from the children's cartoon The Backyardigans.
Last month, Pierre began posting a series of hilarious videos about how children today may not know the songs from the show, which aired in the US from 2004 to 2013. As a result of Pierre's TikToks, one of the songs, the vibey "Castaways," went viral. It has inspired tons of other TikToks, and it even ended up at No. 1 on Spotify's global viral chart.
Pierre told BuzzFeed News she was in a sad place when she was reminded of The Backyardigans. She started reminiscing about how happy the show made her growing up.
"I started rewatching episodes, and immediately my mood was uplifted," she said.
Pierre felt compelled to remind others about The Backyardigans, and she began posting a series of funny skits to TikTok. She is currently on part 14. Part 7 has received 1.5 million likes on its own.
People shared the nostalgia. Pierre told BuzzFeed News that some of her favorite responses were from people who said she had brought back their childhood.
Since then, the Backyardigans love has been all over TikTok.
As people remembered the show, they started focusing on "Castaways" specifically and used it for their own TikToks, calling the song a bop.
What people didn't see coming, however, was that The Backyardigans would end up getting real traction on music charts.
Pierre said she was shocked by how far the trend had gone.
The Backyardigans' “Castaways" enters the top 100 on the US Spotify chart for the first time with 273K streams, up 19%.
"Day after day, there was a new video," she said. "Before I knew it, I was being tagged in endless videos about it being No. 1 on Spotify."
And though most people may not know that she started it all, she said it's been great to see everyone having a good time.