--- title: Potter Puppet Pals TikTok Video Went Viral for a Good Reason description: This "Potter Puppet Pals" video went viral on TikTok for a great reason canonical: https://time.com/5771268/potter-puppet-pals/ author: Melissa Locker article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2020-01-24T19:31:29.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-04-13T08:01:14.869Z og:title: Potter Puppet Pals TikTok Video Went Viral for a Very Understandable Reason og:description: This basketball team came through with the jokes og:url: https://time.com/5771268/potter-puppet-pals/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: TIME og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Potter Puppet Pals TikTok Video Went Viral for a Very Understandable Reason twitter:description: This basketball team came through with the jokes twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production --- # Let Us Step Into the Magic of This 'Potter Puppet Pals' Video Capturing Everyone's Imagination on TikTok by [Melissa Locker](https://time.com/author/melissa-locker/) ## Melissa Locker Jan 24, 2020 7:31 PM UTC by [Melissa Locker](https://time.com/author/melissa-locker/) ## Melissa Locker Jan 24, 2020 7:31 PM UTC The Northwestern University Wildcats basketball team is having a great year. Not only are they making a splash on the court, making their way on to the AP Poll for the first time in four years, but a video a few of the team’s players made a fun video that is going viral on [TikTok](https://time.com/5594374/tiktok-artists-money/). The video features a group of players recreating the song from a “[Potter Puppet Pals” video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z09rvN3s9Kg) that went viral back in 2007\. If you haven’t seen the video, it’s a low-production value puppet show starring hand puppet versions of some of the characters from J.K. Rowling’s _Harry Potter_ universe, including Severus Snape, Albus Dumbledore, Ron Weasley, Hermione Granger, and naturally Harry Potter. The video basically involves the characters saying their names over and over while a mysterious ticking sound fills the room. It’s odd and catchy and surprising still popular, despite being over ten years old, a.k.a. an eternity in internet years. In the [TikTok](https://time.com/5762430/vaping-juul-tiktok-instagram/) video, the Northwestern University basketball players step into the roles of the famous characters, saying their names while bobbing their heads in time to the mysterious ticking sound. According to an oral history of the now-viral video put together by a reporter [at the _Daily Northwestern_,](https://dailynorthwestern.com/2020/01/23/sports/womens-basketball-an-oral-history-of-how-northwestern-went-viral-on-tiktok/) the video was the idea of senior guard Byrdy Galernik, who played Ron Weasley in the video, and was filmed at a hotel in Bloomington, and finished about two minutes before curfew. Galernik posted the video, the team beat Indiana University, and soon the TikTok was going viral. There’s a good reason that it captured the attention of the internet—it’s a darn cute TikTok that is both a quick lesson on [internet history](https://time.com/5721116/teen-tik-tok-history-lessons-videos/) and an introduction to a song for new fans who had previously existed in a world without the wonders of “Potter Puppet Pals”. One note of caution: If you have not heard the song before, it is a serious earworm. It’s far catchier than the [Home Depot theme song](https://time.com/5726742/home-depot-song/) and will most likely get stuck in your head, and leave you humming, “Snape. Snape. Severus Snape” for days on end and no magical spell will remove it. --- > “ @byrdyb” --- Potter Puppet Pals TikTok Video Went Viral for a Good Reason ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/5771268/potter-puppet-pals/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/5771268/potter-puppet-pals/"},"headline":"Let Us Step Into the Magic of This 'Potter Puppet Pals' Video Capturing Everyone's Imagination on TikTok","datePublished":"2020-01-24T19:31:29.000Z","dateModified":"2026-04-13T08:01:14.869Z","description":"\"Snape, Snape, Severus Snape\"","url":"https://time.com/5771268/potter-puppet-pals/","keywords":["Newsfeed","viral","onetime","tiktok","clickmonsters"],"thumbnailUrl":"","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Melissa Locker","jobTitle":"","url":"https://time.com/author/melissa-locker/"}],"articleSection":"","image":[],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/tag/time-section-newsfeed/","name":"Newsfeed"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/5771268/potter-puppet-pals/","name":"Let Us Step Into the Magic of This 'Potter Puppet Pals' Video Capturing Everyone's Imagination on TikTok"}}]}] ```