You go, Gary! ‘Numa’ takes Web by storm

A bespectacled, lip-synching young man from the Jersey suburbs has become the hottest thing to hit the Internet since the Spiridellis brothers started making JibJab cartoons.

Gyrating before a Webcam to the techno beat of a Romanian pop song without ever leaving his chair, Gary Brolsma’s uncanny timing in a video he calls “Numa Numa Dance” has Web watchers cracking up around the globe and cramming the e-mail boxes of their friends with links to the cyber hit.

Featured Thursday on NBC’s “Today” show, the video has already gotten more than a million hits on one Web site, according to one report. On MSNBC.com, “searches for this kid absolutely dominate our site search today,” according to producer Will Femia.

Brolsma, 19, of Saddle Brook, N.J., performs his hit to the strains of O-Zone’s “Dragostea Din Tei,” a song that would be titled “Love Among the Linden Trees” in English. The “Numa Numa” title of the video is from a line in the song.

William Hung channeling ‘Star Wars’ kid
So what’s the video like? “Imagine William Hung of ‘American Idol’ channeling the ‘Star Wars' kid — the last big cult hit in computerland — and you get the picture,” said the New York Daily News. “The highlight may be the moment when he flicks his tongue at the lens. Or maybe when he raises one eyebrow twice over his wire-rimmed spectacles.”

“You wonder for a second when you’re watching it, is this for real,” Joe Levy of Rolling Stone magazine told Matt Lauer of the “Today” show. “Is it a phenomenon? Oh, yeah. Are people richly amused? Oh yes, very much so.” So much, pointed out Lauer, that Brolsma’s handiwork made VH-1’s “Best Week Ever” list.

Lauer’s own take: While many e-mails don’t live up to their promises to deliver humor, “This one is the real deal.”