“Mysterious Ticking Noise” TikTok Catapults Basketball Team to Internet Fame

A little bit of creativity and a dash of Harry Potter fandom nostalgia proved to be the winning combination for the Northwestern University women’s basketball team, who went viral with their TikTok video inspired by YouTube series Potter Puppet Pals.

A TikTok video set to the song from the 2007 Potter Puppet Pals video ”Potter Puppet Pals: The Mysterious Ticking Noise” has soared in popularity, and it isn’t hard to see why. As described by Time, “The Mysterious Ticking Noise” hasn’t lost its momentum over a decade later.

The video features a group of players re[-]creating the song from a ‘Potter Puppet Pals’ video 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 [I]nternet years.

Reportedly, the TikTok homage to Potter Puppet Pals was the brainchild of senior guard Byrdy Galernik, who plays the role of Ron Weasley in the video.

Watch the TikTok here, and be warned that the song might be stuck in your head for the rest of the day.

@byrdybTravel vibes #fyp #potterkids #dumbledore♬ original sound – skajsnabns

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