THE LIST OF classic Late Late Toy Show characters from down the years is well-known to the nation at large.

It’s rare that a new moment from back in the day comes on the horizon – but that’s exactly what happened when the Irish YouTube gaming channel Hit The Snake was going through old VHS tapes this week.

They came across the time Lara Croft appeared on the Pat Kenny era Toy Show in 1999

It just keeps going… and going. The insufferable silence is only masked by the creepy music in the background as Lara dances around

Hit The Snake / RTÉ Hit The Snake / RTÉ / RTÉ

What wasn’t mentioned on the show – even though you’d think it would be top priority – was that this was the official Tomb Raider model at the time Lara Weller

Hit The Snake / RTÉ Hit The Snake / RTÉ / RTÉ

You keep expecting Pat to jump in and break the silence but she just dances without words for nearly a minute

Hit The Snake / RTÉ Hit The Snake / RTÉ / RTÉ

Once the clip was tweeted out, people were scarred by watching it

@daveohsee @daveohsee

@stunt_penguin @stunt_penguin

It’s bringing back some awful memories for those that remember it

@qoreilly @qoreilly

Now it’s on the internet for future generations to enjoy.

It’s a lost gem of Irish television

@GTADuggy @GTADuggy

Hit The Snake is a Cork-based YouTube channel focusing on games, run by Jack Ahern and Patrick Hendrick. Jack tells DailyEdge.ie how they discovered such a lost treasure:

Recently when converting old family VHS tapes to digital format for safe guard against the eventual doom of tape media. I came across a wealth of VHS tapes myself and my sisters would record off the TV as kids.

As many an Irish household of the time, we were avid Toy Show fans, so every year we set our VHS player (which I still have) to record to capture some of the more nostalgic christmas memories of the 90′s so we could watch it during the year and long for the next christmas. When I spotted the Toy Show 99′ VHS Tape, I instantly remembered the Lara Croft moment, and took to youtube to find it, but could not, so in a moment of preservation of Irish gaming history, I took it upon myself to convert and upload the aforementioned clip.

Like all good VHS of important events, it was clearly labelled at the time for future reference

Hit The Snake Hit The Snake

Doing god’s work.

Jack says the clip holds value beyond its mortifying first impression:

Not only is it very entertaining and awkward to watch, to me it is a part of early Irish Gaming History before gaming became fully “mainstream” as it is today and that shouldn’t be forgotten.

It wasn’t *quite* as cool a moment as he recalled though:

I remembered it because in 99 I was an avid video gaming kid and thought Lara and gaming was very cool. So, funnily enough I actually remembered it being a cool moment on TV… but alas it ended up being something altogether different.

Never rewatch your half-forgotten childhood memories, they’ll always disappoint.

Hit The Snake / RTÉ Hit The Snake / RTÉ / RTÉ

Jack does give some insight into why Lara was completely silent throughout:

I since found out that it was one of the actual Lara Croft models, which speaks to why she couldn’t talk on the Toy Show because of their unusual contracts, where they weren’t allowed speak when cosplaying as the Tomb Raider.

That really adds to the awkwardness.

The lads have big plans for the channel going forward:

In recent times I have actually been in contact with the RTE archive looking to get hold of episodes of “Cyber Stream” which was an early Irish gaming centric “Den 2″ show, to no avail as of yet. I would be interested in doing a potential documentary on Irish gaming culture through the years in the future for our little YouTube channel, which kicked off only 4 months ago.

If it produces more classic moments like this, it can only be a good thing.

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