Walk Like an Egyptian

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They walk the line like Egyptians.

Slide your feet up the street, bend your back Shift your arm, then you pull it back Life is hard you know (oh whey oh) So strike a pose on a Cadillac —The Bangles, "Walk Like an Egyptian"

A stance or style of walking meant to resemble ancient Egyptian murals. Common in animation (especially as it's hard to twist your limbs this way in Real Life), often in Knife Outline scenes.

Examples of Walk Like an Egyptian include:

Advertising

• Dogs in the old King Kuts dog food commercials.

Comic Books

• In the album Asterix and Cleopatra, we see the latter discussing her latest portrait:

Cleopatra: It's quite good, but I'm tired of being painted in profile. Can't you do it in a three-quarter view? Artist: Oh, you know how I feel about these modern arts...

Film

• Seen in a few dream sequences in The Prince of Egypt.
• In Asterix & Obelix: Mission Cleopatra, the second Asterix live movie, the Big Bad loses a fight and ends slammed into a mural in this pose.

Literature

• In To Kill a Mockingbird, Scout's brother, Jem, insists on walking like an Egyptian after a school assignment on them causes an Egyptian obsession. According to him, though, that's how they actually walked.
• Discworld
  • Pyramids has a scene where the people are described as walking like this.
  • The Art of Discworld features, of all people, Havelock Vetinari doing this in artwork for Jingo.
• Surprisingly, the children in The Egypt Game do this at one point.

Music

• Named for the song "Walk Like an Egyptian" by The Bangles.

Western Animation

• Total Drama World Tour features a two-part episode titled, "Walk Like an Egyptian"... During which nobody walks like one. Not even the people dressed like ancient Egyptians.
• In "Simpsons Bible Stories", Pharaoh Skinner dictates a letter:

Skinner: All right, read me back what I have so far, Mrs. Krabapatra. Krabappel: Bird, bird, giant eye, pyramid, bird. Skinner: Mmm-hmm, very good. Uh, giant eye, dead fish, cat head, cat head, cat head, guy doing this...

• The Bugs Bunny cartoon A Hare Grows in Manhattan (1947). Bugs tries to hide from a bulldog by becoming part of an animated advertising sign with such images.
• In an Egyptian-themed ChalkZone episode (where Rudy and Penny enter ChalkZone through an ancient Egyptian artifact that happens to be a chalk surface -- It Makes Sense in Context), all the Egyptian chalk drawings (and, to fit in, Rudy, Penny, and Snap) walk like this. And we only see the profiles of their faces, like on (stereo)typical carvings in Egyptian temples.
• In the prequel movie for Totally Spies!, there is a montage of Sam, Clover, and Alex doing this -- to the song—while ducking the strict principal.
• Bender from Futurama dances this way after being Pharaoh of an Egypt-themed planet.
• During an Arthur Imagine Spot to Ancient Egypt, Arthur's Mom and Dad are walking this way. Also, Arthur knocks off the Sphinx's nose.