World’s most bizarre exercise video with dancing ‘poodles’ and Japanese instructor with Pop-Eye arms goes viral …. 10 years after it first came out

A Japanese video commercial featuring a woman exercising with ‘human poodles’ has resurfaced ten years after it was filmed – and become a viral hit.

The YouTube clip was made by Panasonic ahead of the 2004 Summer Olympics and shows Californian-born Japanese model Mariko Takahashi doing a 1980s-style aerobic exercise accompanied by poodles.

Kicking the surreal-level up a notch – even for Japan – Ms Takahashi sports strange ‘Popeye’ muscles as she speaks of how to lose weight and takes the viewer through the exercises.

The clip, made by art director and commercial film director Nagi Noda, is a word-for-word copy of a workout video made by motivational speaker and 90s fitness celebrity Susan Powter.

The poodles are, of course, humans, who had dog heads added later using CGI, and were used by Noda as she found the way poodle fur is groomed to resemble human muscles.