I’ve been singing “Baby Shark” in my head every few weeks for the past year, waiting for “Lil Oscar” and “Grouchy Mane” to return to the Brandeis campus. And exactly one year after “It’s Time,” the dynamic duo reappeared.

Just as cryptic as in 2018, organizers Perry Letourneau ’20 and Dane Leoniak ’20 created a Facebook event for “It’s 2me,” pronounced “It’s tomb” with a crying photo of Perry Dane, The Brandeis Hoot discovered after a reverse Google search. 

At last year’s event, “Lil Oscar” and “Grouchy Mane,” two men in ski masks, entertained students by singing “Baby Shark” and doing a dramatic reading of the beginning of “My Immortal,” a Harry Potter-based fanfiction. 

Tens of Brandeis students, many returning from last year’s crowd, arrived, trekked through the swampy grass on Chapels Field to the infamous spot where the event began. The Brandeis Hoot’s Arts editor Jonah Koslofsky ’20 kept yelling “It’s so muddy!” which was not helpful. 

While the event was scheduled to begin at 11:48 p.m., with only a few people in attendance, the show was delayed. Leoniak even went to the Facebook event and in all caps wrote, “YOURE LATE.” 

As more people made their way to the field, two masked figures emerged from the woods behind the chapels and began singing “Baby Shark.” After the third verse, the audience split like the Red Sea as two more masked figures approached. Which pair were “Lil Oscar” and “Grouchy Mane?”

As the imposters stopped singing, “Lil Oscar” announced to the crowd, “We are from the future, and the future is now.” 

Suddenly, “Lil Oscar” and “Grouchy Mane” de-masked the frauds. The crowd gasped. The imposters ran off into the woods. 

Then “Grouchy Mane” collapsed to the ground, seeming as though he was giving birth. “Lil Oscar” voiced words of encouragement as “Grouchy Mane” continued to push. After an eternity seemed to pass, “Grouchy Mane” breathed a sigh of relief at his child: a rotisserie chicken.

After the birth of his rotisserie chicken, “Grouchy Mane” approached the audience shouting “Will you eat my son?” Tafara Gava ’20 was one of the audience members that took the chicken. “I was handed a piece of very oily chicken,” Gava told The Hoot after the show. “I thought it was a piece of bread.” 

“Grouchy Mane” then proceeded to throw the chicken on the ground, revealing a raw egg. 

“Will you eat my grandson?” he asked. Oliver Leeb ’21 took the egg and left it in his mouth for the remainder of the show. “They told me to take it,” Leeb told The Hoot afterwards. “I do what people tell me to do. I’m so giving.” 

With no sense of transition, as usual, “Lil Oscar” and “Grouchy Mane” asked for volunteers from the audience. When the duo chose two audience members, both were given masks and started wrestling, with both “Lil Oscar” and “Grouchy Mane” yelling “Go George Bush!” 

George Bush ultimately won the fight. 

“Thanks, you can go now,” “Lil Oscar” shouted into the crowd. And with that, “This is Gospel” by Panic! At the Disco started to play. The men who were unmasked at the beginning of the show returned, and the four completed an interpretative dance to the music. “Lil Oscar” and “Grouchy Mane” danced around the unmasked men while they stood still. 

“Lil Oscar” and “Grouchy Mane” danced away into the night. The event was over. 

Like last year’s event, we stood around in silence for an extra minute, not knowing if the show was truly done.

“As someone who’s been here two years, this one was good,” Kai Larson ’21 told The Hoot after the performance. “This year’s was better coordinated. And I was standing in the front.”

The crowd seemed to react positively to the event, except one audience member that yelled “This specifically sucked” into the crowd.

Aaron Stone ’20, an integral part of the performance last year, was not involved in this year’s event. When asked about why he wasn’t involved, he stated that “My boss (who will not be named) said I did a bad job. They just told me to volunteer.”

Letourneau overheard the conversation and felt as though Stone had received a promotion, if anything. 

Letourneau and Leoniak were ultimately too late and did not get the chance to see the event, for the second year in a row. 

“Lil Oscar” and “Grouchy Mane” have provided me with two years of anticipation and two pretty great events. I really hope to one day meet the men behind the mask.

Was this the culmination of it all? Will we ever see “Lil Oscar” and “Grouchy Mane” again?

What comes after it’s 2me? It’s 3me? (Pronounced, “it’s thyme”). Only the genius, mysterious minds behind these events can truly know.