Playground Song

Eeny, meeny, miny, moe,
Catch a tiger by the toe.
If he hollers, let him go,
Eeny, meeny, miny, moe.

—Traditional

A Playground Song is a simple, vocal-only song that is popular amongst children. They usually have a relatively straightforward tempo, with the lyrics as the only real consideration. Often, they are meant to be open-ended, allowing for either improvisation or indefinite running length. Almost all infinite (or seemingly infinite) loop songs are either a Playground Song or descended from one. These songs are prone to Memetic Mutation and very few of them have a recorded origin. Some go back centuries. A lot are far darker and more cynical than media producers give children credit for, including the numerous musical Barney and Teletubbies Death Fics.

The name comes from the fact that the vast majority of the time, these songs are heard on playgrounds and in other public areas that have a lot of children. That doesn't stop them from coming up in other situations, though. "Children's Song," while a more generally accepted term, can also be applied to pretty much anything specifically aimed at prepubescent children (such as songs featured on Sesame Street and similar TV shows). This article will focus exclusively on songs that circulate through elementary schools via memes and Oral Tradition. Many of these songs are in the Public Domain, despite some of the newer playground songs explicitly referencing copyrighted works. A creator may also write their own original song to mimic the effect of a playground song, but those don't necessarily count; then again, children are likely to pick up such songs and bring them into the playground repertoire.

Trying to list all the Playground Songs out there is a mostly futile endeavor. There are just way too many of them with way too many mutations and a lot of songs pop up and fade out of existence quickly. Instead, we will only list examples of their use in fiction. Please list examples with the first entry detailing the title of the song (or, if there is no definitive title, the first stanza) and list all examples of usage/mutations under it.

Compare and contrast Nursery Rhyme and Ironic Nursery Tune. See also Mocking Sing-Song and Kissing In A Tree. Beware of Creepy Children Singing.

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Examples:

Examples pertaining to Ninety-Nine Bottles of Beer have their own page.

• Playground songs in general:
  • The webcomic "Li'l Mell and Sergio" had a storyline in which Sergio was trying to find the origin of playground songs. As it turns out, they're all written by a secret cave-dwelling tribe of mole people. The mole people are cannibals, but they refuse to eat anyone who knows their songs, so they end up capturing a homeschooled kid and trying to eat him.
  • A short story in Evan Dorkin's Dork was about the guy who wrote all those playground songs and his unfortunate end.
• John Jacob Jingleheimer Schmidt
  • Referenced in Robert Heinlein's novel I Will Fear No Evil
  • The character played by Robin Williams in the movie To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything! Julie Newmar is literally named John Jacob Jingleheimer Schmidt and is tired of the song.
  • The movie In the Army Now has a couple characters sing it, to the annoyance of the other soldiers.
  • The movie Disney's The Kid has the title character singing it, to the annoyance of his older self.
  • Mikey in Recess actually gave a bass version. In the movie "...School's Out", the gang is having the quality time together that TJ wanted, and they sing the traditional version of the song after reminiscing about his sister Becky teaching it to (most of) them "back when she was nice."
  • Sung by a music teacher in an issue of Barry Ween.
  • Performed by Jay a couple of times in The Critic, first as part of a faux ventriloquism act with Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and in a later episode, in the style of Bob Dylan.
  • Performed on PB&J Otter as "John Jacob Jingle Otter Breath."
  • In "Strawberry's Big Journey" from Strawberry Shortcake, Orange Blossom leads several rounds of it.
  • Barney & Friends has two different versions. It was first used as the tune for "We Are Barney and the Backyard Gang", another staple song in the first two live Barney shows in the Backyard Gang era. The second was the normal version of the song, only used in the show's first few seasons, and was commonly played in episodes that involved rhymes. One of the later performances had five verses instead of the usual three, under the pretense of characters practicing their library voices.
  • Sesame Street: Used in both "Sing Along" and "Kids' Favorite Songs."
  • VeggieTales also had an arrangement of this on a CD album called "Junior's Playtime Songs".
  • Pinky sings this during one of the Framing Device segments of the Animaniacs VHS You Will Buy This Video.
  • The kids in The Pacifier sing this on a car ride home, except they change it to "Shane Jacob Jingleheimer Schmidt".
  • The protagonist of The Hollow Places sings it in her head in an attempt to avoid thinking of the willows, which are attracted by people thinking about them. It doesn't work that well.
  • Truth in Television: His name is my name, too. (Come on. Somebody had to do it eventually.)
  • It's popular enough for widely recognized versions to exist in other languages, such as Spanish.
• Beans, Beans, the Musical Fruit/Beans, Beans, the Magical Fruit (and variations)
  • Referenced in The Simpsons. One episode has Bart transfer to a Christian school and get asked to recite a psalm. He says that the one he knows about is about beans, then starting this song. It cuts just before the word "toot", with a shot of him being chased out of the school.
    • His blackboard line was once "Beans are neither a fruit nor musical."
  • A tagline for the Mr. Bean movie referenced the song ("The more you laugh, the better you feel / So go see Bean, he'll make you squeal," or something along those lines).
  • A young Marlon tries to chant it in a scene in The Jacksons: An American Dream. Several of the kids are doing various things around the kitchen table, including homework. Before Marlon can finish the chant, Latoya cuts across him with "That's rude!" The commotion builds around the table until Joe bangs his fist on it, shutting all the kids up.
  • Heffer of Rocko's Modern Life is asked briefly to speak at an impromptu funeral for Filburt's dead myna bird. He uses a variation.
    "Beans, beans, they're good for your heart. The more you you eat, the more you—"
    "That's enough."
  • Used in a Frazz comic strip, opening with a girl skipping rope while singing the rhyme, only to be reprimanded by her teacher that "beans aren't fruit." Next panel: Girl skipping rope, singing "Beans, beans, the charmed legume / eat a bunch and clear the room..." (Frazz observes that the thesaurus is there for everyone to use.)
  • A hermit's crow sings random phrases from this in the Stephen King short story "The Gunslinger". Given the author, it's creepy.
  • Time-traveler Claire Fraser teaches this one inadvertently to a bunch of 18th century Scots in Outlander.
  • From a "Dot's Poetry Corner" segment on Animaniacs: "Beans, beans, the musical fruit. The more you eat, the more you get kicked off the air if you finish this poem! Making this example even odder is that Dot says "Ode To A Veggie" before doing this poem.
    • In the episode featuring the song about the bones, Yakko tells the viewers that the song they're about to sing isn't "the bean song", because the man they sang it to would give them more beans if they sang the song they were going to sing.
  • The Lion King 1 ½ (Known as "The Lion King 3: Hakuna Matata" in other countries other than the USA and Canada): Referenced after Timon's song "That's All I Need". Shenzi points out there is dinner and a show (referring to Timon's musical number, and the fact that hyenas eat meerkats), and then Banzai says "And I thought beans were the only musical food!"
  • In Salute Your Shorts, Budnik uses the "musical fruit" and "good for your heart" verses at two separate points during a montage of auditions for the camp's production of Cinderella. Both times, Ug cuts him off before he can say the last word by shouting "Next!" off camera.
  • Sabrina the Teenage Witch: In the episode "Sabrina and the Beanstalk", while Sabrina is attempting to concoct "magic jumping beans", Salem the cat pretends to read the "magical fruit" variation from a book of spells. Sabrina interrupts him after the first line by saying "Oh grow up!".
  • An actual wall advertisement sponsored by the bean industry (seen in an airport) read, in large text: "Beans, beans, they're good for your heart. The more beans you eat,". Then in smaller text:
    The more organic fiber you get in your diet... (plus other advantages of the familiar legumes.)
  • In The Loud House episode "A Tale of Two Tables", Lincoln gets bored sitting at the grownup table and listens in on his younger sisters at the kiddie table singing the song, with "toot" being replaced by Lana doing an armpit fart. Later, when he tries to get kicked out of the grownup table by acting inappropriate, he sings the song and produces a real fart.
  • In the picture book Froggy Goes to Camp, Froggy sings the song on the way home from camp, possibly having learned it there.
• London Bridge is Falling Down
  • There also is a "Hole in my Bucket"-esque version in which every successive verse was "build it up with [material]", followed by a verse about why that material wouldn't work (e.g. "Iron bars will bend and break, bend and break, bend and break...")
  • Barney & Friends most often performed a version of the song where two characters form a bridge and catch characters trying to pass through the bridge at the end of the chorus, lightly tossing them back and forth during the verses, then letting them go. When the song was performed in "Live in New York City", it ended with Derek and Barney catching everyone else. Another time, the cast sang the song while playing with one of those giant rainbow parachutes, and kids took turns passing under.
  • Black Butler's Drocel carried an organ grinder and sang a very creepy version. A later episode focused on one of the lesser known verses.
  • Used in a Dream Sequence in Strangers in Paradise.
  • The Animaniacs song "A Quake! A Quake!" had this song parodied as "L.A. Town Is Falling Down" towards the end. The Warriors join hands and run in a circle, as they're so used to the earthquakes that they treat this one as something of a laughing matter:
  L.A. Town is falling down
  While the ground moves around
  We won't let it get us down
  We're Californians!
  • On Pepper Ann, the same tune was used for the "Lotto Cat" jingle.
  • In the Justice League episode "Wild Cards" Joker sings a variant of this while beating up Batman. Watch here:
  ''Big old Bats has fallen down
  On the ground, mind unsound
  Big old Bats has fallen down
  I'm so happy!''
  • In Wayside School is Falling Down:
  Wayside School is falling down, falling down, falling down,
  Wayside School is falling down, my fair lady!
  Kids go splat as they hit the ground, hit the ground, hit the ground, [etc.]
  Broken bones, blood and gore, blood and gore, blood and gore, [etc.]
  We don't have no school no more, school no more, school no more, [etc.]
  • The 1957 Disney short "The Truth About Mother Goose" features various nursery rhymes and the origins behind them, this one included.
  • In the JaidenAnimations collaboration with TheOdd1sOut "My Embarassing Old Plays" James points out how both plays Jaiden performed at Camp Operetta have a song to the tune of this.
• Miss Lucy Had A Baby / Miss Lucy Had A Steamboat (and variants);
  Miss Lucy had a steamboat
  The steamboat had a bell
  Miss Lucy went to heaven
  The steamboat went to...
  Hello, operator? Give me number nine...
  • An episode of The Simpsons has Lisa singing this while Homer listens in horror as he thinks she's going to swear, with a big sigh of relief whenever the rhyme is subverted.
  • Emilie Autumn's variant "Miss Lucy Had Some Leeches" which is about the conditions of 1840s asylums set to the same tune and dosed up on Nightmare Fuel.
  • Wendy sings a particularly filthy version in the boy-band episode of South Park.
  • The Jib Jab parody is also very explicit.
  • In Skin Horse Unity uses it to "encourage" Nick to make a difficult landing.
  • Kimmy and Stephanie on Fuller House do a rendition, along with the clapping game that goes with it, in a season 3 episode to prove they can work as a team. It is just as nostalgic as that sounds.
  • The Hey Arnold! episode "Fishing Trip" has a variant called "Miss Suzie Had a Tugboat".
• The Song That Doesn't End ^note  Sometimes titled "The Song That Never Ends"

  "This is the song that doesn't end/ Yes, it goes on and on my friend/Some people started singing it not knowing what it was/ and they'll continue singing it forever just because—"

  Repeat ad infinitum.

  • The song was originally written for Lamb Chop's Play-Along and was used at the end of every episode.
  • Sung by Brak on Cartoon Planet. Zorak shuts him up.
  • This was sung on an episode of the WB sitcom Smart Guy.
  • A SpongeBob SquarePants book was about this.
  • In the Harry Potter fanfic I'm Still Here Harry uses it as part of a ward scheme intended to discourage upper-year Slytherins from breaking into first year students' rooms, an idea which he got from Dudley singing it to him after watching Lamb Chop's Play Along as a child.
• "I know a song that gets on everybody's nerves, everybody's nerves, everybody's nerves. I know a song that gets on everybody's nerves, and this is how it goes, bum bum bum-" (Repeat until the nearest adult(s) pop(s) a blood vessel)
  • Performed on Stanley's Dinosaur Roundup on Stanley
  • Used as the transition song in the The Mysterious Mr. Enter video "Top 20 Worst Cartoon Theme Songs."
  • Can be combined with 'The Song That Doesn't End' for extra cruelty. It is a song that gets on your nerves...
• "Ring Around the Rosy" is one of those "centuries-old" songs, dating back to at least 1790. It was not originally about dying in the black plague, but so many people think this that it might as well be anyway.
  • An alternate ending of Heathers has the title characters perform this.
  • Orson Scott Card wrote a short story in the Foundation universe, "The Originist", that showed that a recognizable version of this was around thousands of years later — and how that showed that some human communities, like "young children playing" were effectively immortal.
  • In On the Banks of Plum Creek, Nellie Oleson demands the little girls play "Ring Around the Rosy" every day at recess. No exceptions.
• "Boa Constrictor" started as a poem by Shel Silverstein, but has made rounds as a playground song as well.
• The novel This Perfect Day is a dystopia with a fictional Playground Song which ties into the title of the book:
  Christ, Marx, Wood and Wei,
  Led us to this perfect day.
• "Miss Mary Mack, Mack, Mack/All dressed in black, black, black"
  • Used on Barney & Friends in the season 2 finale "A Very Special Delivery", with guest star Ella Jenkins leading the kids in singing it.
  • This song was also sung in an episode of Gullah Gullah Island.
• Creepy playground jump rope rhymes are quite popular in horror movies:
  • Probably the most famous one is the one from A Nightmare on Elm Street:
    One, two, Freddy's coming for you
    Three, four, better lock your door
    Five, six, grab your crucifix
    Seven, eight, better stay up late
    Nine, ten, never sleep again...
    • This song, Freddy's theme, is a corruption of One, Two, Buckle My Shoe. The above version is often sung at an actual playground in dream sequences before a switch to the signature boiler room that Freddy uses for his killing grounds. It has also made the rounds as an actual playground song, along with one about Jason.
  • Another lesser known one is the one from Dr. Giggles:
    This town has a doctor and his name is Rendell
    Stay away from his house 'cause he's the doctor from Hell.
    He killed all his patients, every last one,
    And cut out their hearts, purely for fun.
    So if you're from Moorehigh and you get sick
    Fall on your knees and pray you die quick.
  • The horror comic Simon Dark has kids jumping rope and singing the repeating ditty:
    Lurks in Shadows. Hides in the park.
    Simon. Simon. Simon Dark.
    If you're good he'll stay away.
    If you're bad he'll make you pay.
  • The Simpsons: In "Radio Bart", Bart gets stuck down a well after tricking the townspeople into thinking a little boy was trapped, and they make it no secret that they want him to rot down there. Even kids on the playground make up a morbid jump-roping rhyme about him.
    One plus one plus three is five
    Little Bart Simpson's buried alive
    He's so neat, he's so sweet,
    Now the rats have Bart to eat
• In the Buffy the Vampire Slayer episode "Hush", Buffy has a dream at the beginning where a young girl sings in the playground song method to foreshadow the appearance of the episode's demons.
• A popular Japanese playground song that appears frequently in fiction is titled Kagome, Kagome, and has absolutely nothing to do with Inuyasha; it is supposedly about a nightingale. English lyrics:
  Kagome, kagome,
  The bird in the cage/basket
  When oh when will it escape?
  At the night of daybreak
  The crane and the turtle slipped and fell
  Who is that in front behind you?

The strange, contradictory lyrics have raised multiple alternate interpretations including a chicken in a basket ("kago" can mean "cage" or "basket"), prostitution, an individual about to be executed or a miscarriage caused by assault. The lyrics, the slow pace and the dark interpretations of each line make it popular in horror, as does the image of the game, with children surrounding a crouching, blindfolded child and slowly circling her.

• The song appears repeatedly in the Corpse Party series.
• It makes an appearance in a later episode of Excel♡Saga with the lolicon doctor.
• In Ghost Stories episode 11, a collection of possessed toys circle around the heroine while singing this song (the English dub replaced it with a song to the melody of "Jesus Loves Me").
• Inuyasha makes mention of this, as children used to make fun of the heroine Kagome on account of the song.
• The game itself is played in As the Gods Will.
• In Robotics;Notes, the song is repeatedly sent to phones all over Japan, and is used as a symbol for the Committee of 300.
• It is also referenced in a volume of Tactics, sung by a group of children at play during a time when they're dissappearing. The main characters discuss the darker aspects of the song.
• The song also comes up several times in Fatal Frame during the Second Night. In particular, the song comes up during a puzzle related to it, and when Blinded appears behind Miku for a final fight.
• The fifth stage theme of Touhou Eiyashou ~ Imperishable Night is named "Cinderella Cage ~ Kagome Kagome".
• In Gyakuten Kenji 2 AKA the second Ace Attorney Investigations game the victim of The Stolen Turnabout is Tsubasa Kagome, a member of the Prosecutorial Investigation Committee who was privately investigating the death of her boyfriend, a photojournalist called Ryuji Kamei that happened some years previous to the event of the game. Both names make reference to the playground game: "Tsubasa" means "wings" and her full name comes from the phrase "kago no naka no tori" (bird in a cage) and Ryuji's surname comes from "kame" (turtle). The song also serves as foreshadowing about the identity of the real culprit: the last part of the song reads "The crane and turtle slipped and fell/Who is behind you now?" The answer? Bansai Ichiyanagi, the man responsible for Tsubasa's death.

• In Blade Runner, Roy uses bits and pieces of a counting rhyme to taunt Deckard during their final fight. It's not, strictly speaking, a playground song, but has similar formation.
• The girls' nursery rhyme in Tin Man, "Two little princesses dancing in a row" is the backdrop to DG's dreams about The O.Z.
  • Don't call it that.
• "Jingle bells, Batman smells, Robin laid an egg..."
  • Appeared twice in The Simpsons - once sung by Bart, and once sung by Robert Goulet.
  • Goulet also did this one: "Jingle bells, Prickly smells, Menlo's such a drag. Ashley Girls flip their curls, and Finster is a hag."
  • Sung by (who else?) The Joker himself in the Christmas Episode of Batman: The Animated Series.
  • Sung by The Flash in an episode of Justice League Unlimited.
  • Batman himself in a comic in the first version of "Bizarro Comics"
  • Robin of Teen Titans Go!! is seen reading a newspaper with the partially-obscured headlines "Batmobile lost wheel" and "Joker got away".
  • It also appears in episode 521 of Mystery Science Theater 3000, in which Mike and the bots sing it during the opening credits to the film Santa Claus.
  • Filk-rapper The Great Luke Ski incorporated this into his "Fanboy Christmas" medley, including a second verse about other Batman characters.
  • This Hub promo also parodies the Batman version of Jingle Bells.
  • One of the Junie B. Jones books is titled Jingle Bells, Batman Smells. P.S.: So Does May. It was also adapted into a stage show. In the book, Junie B. and some of the other characters sing the song, but Junie B. makes her up her own lyrics that involve May, a tattletale classmate that she dislikes.
  • It has a second verse:
  Crashing through the snow
  on a pair of broken skis
  rolling down the mountain
  smashing into trees!
  The snow is turning red,
  I think I'm nearly dead,
  I woke up in the hospital
  with stitches in my head!
  (Refrain)
  • A Pokémon version:
  Jingle bells, Muk smells
  Chansey laid an egg
  Pidgeotto broke its wing
  And Hitmonchan took ballet.
  • Morgan sings this in the first-season Christmas episode of Boy Meets World, prompting Amy to teach her the correct lyrics.
  • Nicky Pike from The Baby-Sitters Club is fond of singing this on car trips, to the utter annoyance of his large family. His own variants include "Jingle bells, Santa smells, Rudolph broke his leg" and another that begins "Jingle barf", but he is cut off by his father before he can continue the latter.
  • The song even has a Barney variant:
  Jingle Bells, Batman smells
  Grandma had a gun
  She shot Barney and made him pee
  And now he is all done!
  • There are some creative people in real life who have made a Christmas display out of it, such as this.
  • Tom Scott surveyed over sixty thousand people to make this video compiling as many versions of the rhyme as possible.
  • Spongebob Squarepants has "Jingle bells, Mermaid Man smells, Barnacle Boy laid an egg..."
  • An early For Better or for Worse comic has one of Michael's classmates singing this on the bus to a school field trip.
  • A Robot Chicken sketch has a kid sing this when the actual Batman and Robin show up, who are not amused.
• Kissing In A Tree: [Name] and [Name] sittin' in a tree, k-i-s-s-i-n-g.

  First comes love, then comes marriage/ Then comes the baby in the baby carriage!

  That's not all, that's not all, here comes the baby playin' basketball!

  • Better yet, (the father's) "drinkin' alcohol".
  • This one appeared in Calvin and Hobbes, with Hobbes singing it about Calvin and Suzie.
  • Appeared in The Simpsons, in the episode "Lisa the Tree Hugger".
  • In Friends, after Chandler gets drunk and makes out with one of Joey's sisters, then manages to convince Joey that he's honestly interested in her:
    Joey: You and my sister sittin' in a tree!
    Chandler: Heh-heh... yup, I'm in a tree.
  • Draco and the Potters use an altered version as a chorus in "Harry and Draco Secretly Want To Make Out"
  Draco and Harry sitting in a tree, S-N-O, G-G-I-N-G
  • Used in chapter 5 of Ed, Edd, 'n Pony, after it is suspected that Edd might have some sort of affection with Twilight Sparkle:
  Eddy and Spike: Double D and Twilight, sitting in a tree-
  Ed: K-I-S-S-L-M-N-O-P!
  • This was used a few times in Recess, and one episode did a parody of it:
  Various students: Vince and Prickly, standin` on the green, P-U-T-T-I-N-G!
  • Rapper Nas parodied this in the chorus of his song "K-I-S-S-I-N-G"
  ''Picture us married, you and me, K-I-S-S-I-N-G. I remember the first time, girl you and me, F-U-C-K-I-N-G.
  • In The Fusco Brothers comic strip, Axel the wolverine observes Lance and his girlfriend in their usual mood and chants:
  Lance and Gloria, sitting in a tree - A-R-G-U-I-N-G!
  • Binky does this to Arthur and Francine in Arthur, although he forgets how to spell "kissing".
  • In an episode of a television series based off Robin Hood, Robin & Marian are trapped up in a tree by the sheriff's men. When Much Miller goes to report it to the rest of the gang, his first words are "Robin & Marian. . .they're sitting in a tree!"
  • The Froggy book "Froggy Gets A Babysitter" has Froggy annoying the titular babysitter (who is on the phone with her boyfriend) with this.
  • In the Teacher's Pet episode "Never Take Candy From A Kindergartener" Spot teases Leonard with this when a kindergarten girl gets a crush on him.
• Mairzy doats and dozy doats and liddle lamzy divy. A kiddly divy too, wouldn't you? ^note And if the words sound weird, and funny to your ear (a little bit jumbled and jivey), sing "Mares eat oats, and does eat oats, and little lambs eat ivy. A kid'll eat ivy too, wouldn't you?"
  • Referenced in Piers Anthony's Mode series.
  • During the air raid drill in The Mouse That Roared, the people in the shelters start with "Nearer, My God, To Thee" and wind up singing "Mairzy Doats".
  • Lambsy Divey from It's the Wolf! is named after this song.
  • In the Looney Tunes cartoon "Brother Brat", babysitter Porky frantically consults a child psychology book with a baby's teeth clenched on his finger — he gets the useless advice "Not only will he bite your finger, a kid'll eat ivy too. Wouldn't you?"
  • This was sung by Shari Lewis in one episode of Lamb Chop's Play-Along.
• Great green gobs of greasy, grimy gopher guts, marmaladed monkey meat, little dirty birdie feet! Great gray gobs of all-purpose porpoise pus, Ate it without a spoon, got a straw! Slurp!
  • An alternate version says "mutilated monkey meat, French fried flamingo feet."
  • Or Stimpy's version:
  Great green gobs of greasy, grimy gopher guts / Teeny weeny birdie's feet / French fried eyeballs / Smothered in a pool of blood / And me without a — *whistle* — spoon!
  • Caddyshack groundskeeper Bill Murray chants this in his usual muttering growl as he plots to kill the gopher.
  • An episode of Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends has Bloo chant this to calm down a screaming Cheese. It nearly works, but the "don't have a spoon" part gets him back to screaming.
  • In Runaway Ralph, the title character is horrified by a version with the standard opening line, but the following continuation:
  Mutilated monkey meat, chopped up baby parakeet,
  Great green gobs of greasy grimy gopher guts, and me without my spoon.
  • In ``How the Mind Works'', Steven Pinker begins his discussion of disgust with a version of this.
  • A Hi and Lois comic has the kids singing this after being told to "sing a kid's song" instead of "Like A Virgin" by Madonna.
• "I'm bringing home a baby bumblebee . . ." As a note, most printed versions end with wiping up the squished bee, but there's a version out there with licking it up, followed by puking, followed by licking that up, and so on, literally ad nauseam. Fortunately, the Barney & Friends version does not use the verses about licking up and throwing up the bee's body.
• "Who stole the cookies from the cookie jar?"
  • Got a nod to in Scribblenauts.
  • The song was performed on three episodes of Barney and Friends, but Moral Guardians complained about the song teaching kids to steal things, and it was never sung again.
  • This song was also sung in the Wee Sing video "Grandpa's Magical Toys".
  • AJ mentions that he hates this song in the My Weird School episode "Mr. Hyde is Out of His Mind!".
• The song "Asante Sana, Squash Banana" from The Lion King (1994) is a popular playground song in many parts of Africa where Swahili is spoken. The whole song translates as "Thank you very much, squash banana, You are a baboon and I am not."
• The WWII favorite "Hitler Has Only Got One Ball", sung to the tune of Colonel Bogey. Countless variations exist - a typical example:
  Hitler has only got one ball
  The other is in the Albert Hall
  Himmler is very sim'lar
  And Goebbels has no balls at all!
• Comet — It makes your sink turn green / Comet — It tastes like gasoline / Comet — It makes you vomit — So get some Comet, and vomit, today!
  • Before he starts contributing to "Lisa, it's Your Birthday", Bart fools around and has some fun with this on The Simpsons.
  Lisa! Her teeth are big and green! Lisa! She smells like gasoline! Lisa! Da-da-da-disa! She is my sista, her birthday, I missed-a!
• "There was a dustbin man", to the tune of Lonnie Donegan's "My Old Mans's a Dustman":
  There was a dustbin man,
  who wears a dustman's hat,
  he bought five thousand tickets, to watch a football match.
  Fatty passed to skinny,
  Skinny passed it back.
  Fatty took a rotten shot and knocked the goalie flat.
  Put him on a stretcher,
  take him off the pitch,
  Stuff his bum with chewing gum, and pour it out his dick.
• Scholars may debate whether "Shimmy shimmy co-co-pop" started as a playground hit, or whether it started as a song by Doo Wop artist Little Anthony, but it has become a jumprope rhyme with a number of variations, one of which Tom Hanks made famous in the film BIG ( and he still knows the words).
• "I hate you, You hate me, Let's hang Barney from a tree, With a knife in his back and a loaded .44, No more purple dinosaur."
  • Sometimes "A knife in his back and a loaded .44" is replaced by "With a shotgun *BOOM* Barney hits the floor".
    • Really, there are tons of variations, such as "Let's tie Barney to a tree, (or "let's get together and kill Barney!") take out a shotgun, shoot him in the head, yay, hooray, Barney's dead." Another popular variation is "With a knife in his back and a gun to his head / Aren't you glad that Barney's dead?"
  • Then, there's this:
  Barney was a dinosaur with no imagination/he went into a Taco Bell and we all ran away!/Barney was caught with drugs up his tail/And now because of that he now lives in jail!

  Barney is a dinosaur with no imagination/Big and fat and full of crap/He died from constipation!
  • Barney is a serious Hate Sink for school-age children.
  Tic-Tac-Toe
  Three in a row
  Barney got shot by a G.I. Joe
  Mama called the doctor and the doctor said,
  "Whoop, Barney's dead!"
  • A variation of the above:
  Tic-tac-toe
  Three in a row
  Barney got shot
  What a load.
  We took a shotgun and shot him in the head,
  Whoops, Barney's dead!
  • There's a variation crossing Barney with the Teletubbies. "I love you, you love me, Tinky Winky shot Dipsy, with a great big bang and a bullet in the head, sorry Laa-Laa, Dipsy's dead."
    • Another longer version:
  I love you, you love me. Tinky Winky killed Dipsy, with a bang and a bullet to the head, sorry Laa-Laa, Dipsy's dead.
  Laa-Laa cried. Dipsy died. Po commited suicide. Tinky Winky did the same. Teletubbies are insane.
  • I love Him, He loves me, we're the Leader's family...
  • "We love you, I love we, he's as dumb as dumb can be, but we found a way that we can get along, I stand still for 'The Anvil Song'!"
  • "I love you, you love me. Dontcha want a frontal lobotomy?"
• To the tune of "Joy to the World:"
  Joy to the world,
  The teacher's dead.
  We barbecued the head.
  Don't worry about the body,
  We flushed it down the potty,
  And round and round it goes,
  And round and round it goes,
  And rooound it gooes, around it goes.

Like many of these songs, it also has lots of variations, including a Barney version.

• This was sung by Nelson Muntz on the Simpsons episode "Lisa's Date With Density".

• "On Top of Old Smokey":
  On top of Old Smokey
  All covered with sand
  I shot my poor teacher
  With a red rubber band
  I shot her with pleasure
  I shot her with pride
  Oh, how could I miss her?
  She's forty feet wide!
  • Another version:
  On top of Old Smokey
  All covered with snow
  I shot my poor teacher
  With a bow and arrow
  I went to her funeral
  I went to her grave
  When the people threw flowers
  I threw a grenade

There's also another verse in which the person involved in the song comes back a few years later, with the kid carrying an object to hurt them again (such as a bazooka or a lightsaber).

• Yet another:

On top of spaghetti
All covered with cheese,
I lost my last meatball
When somebody sneezed

• Then there's "...I lost my poor meatball/When somebody sneezed," some versions of which seem to go on forever. Like a lot of these songs, it was performed on Barney. The Barney version ended with the moral "If you eat spaghetti all covered with cheese, hold onto your meatball and don't ever sneeze!"
• The Kidsongs version takes place at summer camp, where the counselors have decided to serve spaghetti and meatballs for lunch. The meatball rolls off one girl's plate and all over the campgrounds, even rolling past the lake before making it all the way back to the picnic table and the girl's plate, to the applause of the other campers. The verses are pretty redundant, though, with the lines "It kept right on going" and "It kept right on rolling" repeating over and over again.
• Got a nod in Calvin and Hobbes, when Calvin had an ever-exaggerating Imagine Spot about the further adventures of the meatball.
• Sesame Street covered the meatball version of this song in the Direct to Video release Kids' Favorite Songs Volume 2.
  • And the regular version in the 70s album "Bert and Ernie Sing Along."
• A VeggieTales CD had Larry sing a variant of the meatball version that the the other characters mock for its ridiculousness. For example, there are running gags about Smokey Bear (because Pa Grape thought they were singing about him at first), and the others finding the fact that the mush grew into a tree strange.
• Stephanie attempts to play this song on the recorder in one episode of Full House.
• The "On top of spaghetti" version is used in the Cheesy Con Sing-Along in the Donkey Hodie episode "Cheesy Con", where Donkey sings about how she is allergic to parmersan cheese.

• The Battle Hymn of the Republic
  My eyes have seen the glory
  of the burning of the school
  we have tortured all the teachers,
  we have broke the Golden Rule.
  We marched into his office
  and we tickled the Principal!
  Our troops go marching on!
  Glory, Glory, Halleujah,
  Teacher hit me with a ruler
  I bopped her on the beanie
  with a rotten tangerinie,
  and her teeth came marching out!
  • Another version that, if sung today, would result in the school being locked down and the three nearest SWAT teams assaulting the place:
  Glory, glory hallelujah
  Teacher hit me with a ruler
  I met her at the door with a loaded .44
  And the teacher ain't teachin' no more!
  • And to the same tune, "He jumped from forty thousand feet without a parachute [x3] / And he ain't gonna jump no mo-o-ore!"
  • In Christine Nostlinger's Konrad^note Aka The Factory-Made Boy. Kitty teaches Konrad this and several Christmas carol parodies while training him to act like a normal child.
  • A Japanese version of this song exists, but it's about Anpanman going on a walk and encountering Baikinman, only to defeat him with a punch. The "Glory, glory, hallelujah" part is omitted in this version.
• Parody of "We Three Kings"
  We three kings of Orient are
  Trying to smoke a rubber cigar
  But it was loaded and exploded killing one of us
  We two kings of Orient are...
  • Another variant:
  We three kings of Orient are
  One in a taxi
  One in a car
  One on a scooter
  Blowing his hooter
  Smoking a big cigar.

  • With the chorus:
  Oh, star of wonder, star of night
  Fill my pants with dynamite
  Light the fuse and off we go
  Round the world to Jericho.
  • In the music album based on the Arthur special Arthur's Perfect Christmas, Arthur's little sister D.W. performs the song as follows as part of a Running Gag:
  We three kings ate boiling tar
  Kissed a bear in back of a car
  Drank a fountain, chewed a mountain
  Why did we eat that tar?
  What were we thinking?
  What did we do?
  What were we drinking?
  What did we chew?
  Tar is not a major food group
  And you shouldn't kiss a bear.
  • Heartbeat slightly modified the verse (the only part sung) to fit the period, replacing the "smoking a big cigar" with "following Ringo Starr".
    • In the 1960s kids sang:
  We four [1]Beatles of Liverpool are,
  One on drums and three on guitar:
  John and Paul and gear George Harrison
  Following Ringo Starr!
  • A commercial for The Powerpuff Girls (1998) Christmas special Twas The Fight Before Christmas has the titular characters and the show's narrator singing a variation about the former and their fight against evil.
• One to the tune of the Ozzy Osbourne song "Iron Man"
  I am ice cream man
  Runnin over fat kids with my van!
  Don't care if they run
  Chasin' em down is much more fun!
  • Another version replaces the third and fourth lines:
  I throw ice cream cones
  At the little children with no homes
  • There's also:
  I am Iron Man
  Do not need a woman 'cause I've got my hand.
  I was Tony Stark
  But my hand got bitten off by a shark!
• Sung to the tune of a Middle Eastern Regional Riff:
  There's a place in France
  Where the naked ladies dance
  There's a hole in the wall
  Where the men can see it all.
  • And the variant:
  There's a place on Mars
  Where the woman smoke cigars
  And the men wear bikinis
  And the children drink martinis
  Every sip they take
  Is enough to kill a snake
  When the snake is dead
  They put roses on its head
  When the roses die
  They put diamonds in its eyes
  When the diamonds fade
  They call the king of spades
  And the king of spades yells FREEZE!
  • The tune to the song, "The Streets of Cairo", actually dates back to The Gay '90s, believe it or not, and could possibly be far older. "Take it Off" by Kesha has used the tune as well.
• Then there's this song:
  Deck the Halls with Gasoline
  Fa-la-la-la-la-la-la-la
  Light a match and watch it gleam
  Fa-la-la-la-la-la-la-la
  Watch your school burn down to ashes
  Fa-la-la-la-la-la-la-la
  Aren't you glad we played with matches?
  Fa-la-la-la-la-la-la-LA!!!
  • Bart Simpson's Guide to Life includes a version of this along with O Cannibals, O Cannibals (to the tune of O Christmas Tree) and Flakey the Leper (Frosty the Snowman)
  Decorate your father's belly,
  Fa la la la la, la la la la,
  While he's sleeping by the telly,
  Fa la la la la, la la la la.
  Jelly smeared in patterns festive,
  Fa la la, la la la, la la la,
  Makes a centerpiece suggestive,
  Fa la la la la, la la la la.
  Next create a yuletide bonbon,
  Fa la la la la, la la la la.
  Drip some chocolate sauce upon him,
  Fa la la la la, la la la la.
  Better chase away the pets now,
  Fa la la, la la la, la la la,
  Or your dad is X-mas dog chow,
  Fa la la la la, la la la la.
  Coloured lights his belly wreathing,
  Fa la la la la, la la la la,
  Blend so gaily with his breathing,
  Fa la la la la, la la la la.
  Crowning all, a star above it,
  Fa la la, la la la, la la la,
  Show the neighbors, they will love it,
  Fa la la la la, la la la la.
  If your dad begins to waken,
  Fa la la la la, la la la la,
  Hide the tinsel-covered bacon,
  Fa la la la la, la la la la.
  Tell him that he looks delicious,
  Fa la la, la la la, la la la,
  Run like hell, he might get vicious,
  Fa la la la la, la la la la.
  • A Fox Kids promo for Animaniacs did a parody of Deck The Halls as well:
  Deck the halls with smelly stockings!
  Fa-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la!
  'Tis the season to go shopping!
  Fa-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la!
  Holidays make us more loony!
  Fa-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la!
  Join the fun on our cartoon-y!
  Watch us crazy Animaniacs!
• Playschool is a long-running children's programme in Australia with a simplistic nursery-style theme song. Of course there's a gratuitously offensive version:
  There's a bear in there, and a chair as well / There's a bear in there, on an electrical chair
  There are people with games, and stories to tell / There are people with AIDS, and hand grenades
  Open wide, come inside / Open wide, commit suicide
• The Diarrhea Song, a very versatile song poking fun at the condition, partly popularized by the film Parenthood but also pre-dating it. The lyrics follow a rhyme scheme that can easily be changed around (When you're [doing a mundane activity] and [the symptoms of diarrhea kick in]), with a chorus of "Diarrhea *fart fart* Diarrhea" (or sometimes "Mamma Mia"). Some examples:
  When you're driving in your Chevy and you feel something heavy (chorus)
  When you're sitting on the john and the toilet paper's gone (chorus)
  When you're climbing up the ladder and you feel something splatter (chorus)
  • There's another variant of the song where the chorus is replaced by "Be a man, use your hand" being repeated twice instead of "diarrhea".
  • One episode of Chappelle's Show featured a choir performance of this song conducted by Dave, with loud diarrhea sound effects and Dave miming letting fly at the appropriate times.
• Variations on Popeye the Sailor's theme song have been around on playgrounds for decades, possibly even dating to the 1930s when the cartoons were popular.
  I'm Popeye the Sailor Man
  I live in a garbage can
  I turned on the heater
  It burned/chopped off my wiener
  I'm Popeye the Sailor Man!
  • Another version replaces the third and fourth lines:
  I like to go swimmin'
  With bowlegged women
  • A UK version:
  I'm Popeye the Sailor Man
  I live in a caravan
  I bought a pianner
  For six and a tanner
  I'm Popeye the Sailor Man!
• 'Lizzie Borden Had An Axe' is basically a song about how the real life Lizzie Borden once took a hatchet to her father and stepmother in 1892 Fall River, Massachusetts.
  Lizzie Borden took an Axe,
  And gave her mother forty whacks.
  And when she saw what she had done,
  She gave her father forty-one.
  Close the door!
  Lock it! Latch it!
  Here comes Lizzie
  With a brand-new hatchet!
• There's the British classic (going back at least to between the world wars)
  While shepherds washed their socks by night
  All seated by the tub
  A bar of [brand name] soap came down
  And splashed them all with mud.
  • In the Baker Street Irregulars series by Terrance Dicks, those meddling kids are investigating a Haunted House mystery. During a Spooky Séance one of them tries to think of a hymn to bolster his courage but can only remember the "washing socks" version (though his ends A bar of Sunlight soap came down / and they began to scrub).
  • Another variant:
  While shepherds watched their flocks by night
  A watching MTV
  An angel of the Lord came down
  And switched to BBC.
• Then there's this, sung to the tune of the My Little Pony (G3) theme:
  My Little Pony/All skinny and bony/Went to the circus/And blew up the act!
  I called her a liar/She set me on fire/She'll always be in my heart - NOT!
  • Some versions replace "And blew up the act!" with "And farted on purpose".
  • Another variant:
  My Little Pony/All Skinny and bony/Went for a walk in the park.
  Sat on a wire/And fell in the fire/My Little Pony is dead
• Here's another popular one, named "Cinderella". There are a lot of variants, like these seven:
  Cinderella,
  Dressed in yella,
  Went upstairs to meet her fella,
  How many times did she kiss him? (1, 2, 3, 4, 5 etc.)

  Cinderella,
  Dressed in lace,
  Went to powder her face,
  How many pounds did it take? (1, 2, 3, 4, 5 etc.)

  Cinderella,
  Dressed in red,
  Went downstairs to bake some bread,
  How many loaves did she bake? (1, 2, 3, 4, 5 etc.)

  Cinderella,
  Dressed in red,
  Vampire lurking at her bed
  But she grabbed a Wooden Stake
  How much hammering did it take? (1, 2, 3, 4, 5 etc.)

  Cinderella,
  Dressed in yella
  Went upstairs to kiss her fella
  By mistake, she kissed a snake,
  How many doctors did it take? (1, 2, 3, 4, 5 etc)

  Cinderella,
  Dressed in yella,
  Went upstairs to kiss her fella,
  On her way up her bladder busted,
  How many people were disgusted? (1, 2, 3, 4, 5 etc.)

  Cinderella,
  Dressed in blue,
  Who's going to the ball with you? (A, B, C, D, E etc.)
  • The "kissed a snake" variation of the rhyme is briefly seen being recited by some kids in the Language Arts Through Imagination short "How Does Sound Sound?".
  • In the The Berenstain Bears episode "The In-Crowd", Sister and her friends sing this song while jumping rope.
• "Inky Binky Bonky" is a song usually used to determine who gets to do something first (like Eenie Meenie Miney Moe).
  Inky binky bonky
  Daddy had a donkey
  Donkey died, daddy cried,
  Inky binky bonky.
• The little hymn "All things bright and beautiful" has not been spared:
  All things bright and beautiful,
  all creatures great and small,
  all things wise and wonderful,
  the church bus hits them all!
  • Sometimes the last line states that a "school bus kills them all"
  • Monty Python took it further...
  All things dull and uggerly
  All creatures short and squat
  All things rude and na-a-sty
  The Lord God made the lot
• The Farmer In The Dell could be considered this, as like many playground songs, it has many variations, and it's a game commonly played by kids.
  • There is a board game called "Hi-Ho Cherry-O", referencing this song.
  • Performed on Barney & Friends as "Family In The Dell".
  • Performed in the Sesame Street album "Bert and Ernie Sing Along."
  • The U.S. Acres short "Flights of Fantasy" had Roy sing part of this song at the beginning, modified to be about the chickens the weasel was stealing. "The rooster takes a hen, the rooster takes a hen, hi-ho the derry-o, the rooster takes a hen!" Ironically, this was in the same episode which had a "99 Bottles Of Beer" reference in the first Garfield short.
• There's also this, sung to the tune of the English alphabet song (also used for Twinkle Twinkle Little Star):
  A, B, C, D, E, F, G,
  Gummy bears are chasing me,
  One is red, one is blue,
  One is chewing/peeing on my shoe,
  Now I'm running for my life,
  Because the red one has a knife!
  • Another one about little kids' shows:
  A, B, C, D, E, F, G,
  Baby shows are a pain to me!
  Dora, Barney and Elmo drive me insane,
  Teletubbies and Mickey are rotting my brain!
  A, B, C, D, E, F, G,
  Baby shows are a pain to me!
  • Here's a Twinkle Twinkle variant:
  Twinkle twinkle chocolate bar,
  My dad drives a rusty car.
  Start the engine, pull the choke,
  Off we go in a cloud of smoke,
  Twinkle twinkle chocolate bar,
  My dad drives a rusty car.
• In the Benjamin Britten opera Albert Herring, three Cheerful Children sing this while bouncing a ball against the door of the greengrocery shop, clapping their hands three times in between choruses:
  Bounce me high,
  Bounce me low,
  Bounce me up to Jericho!
  Bounce me slow,
  Bounce me quick,
  Bounce me to Arithmetick!
• Feet of Clay has an in-universe example; Vimes wants to know what kids in his old neighborhood sing when they play hopscotch, and asks a maid if it's "Salt, mustard, vinegar, pepper." She replies that that's a skipping rhyme and when they play hopscotch they sing "Billy Scuggins is a brass stud." This is based on a kid Vimes actually knew that was a Butt-Monkey, and was originally "William Scuggins is a bastard."
• Popular in the 1990s:
  I believe I can die,
  I got shot by the FBI...
  • "All I wanted was some chicken wings/And some fries from Burger King..."
  • There's another version that starts with the line "I Believe I can Fly" and has the last lines as "all I wanted was some chicken wings/from McDonald's or Burger King"
• "Down by the Bay:"
  • In "Franklin Goes to Day Camp" on Franklin, Franklin and his friends sing the song.
  • The song has also been covered on an album featuring Dora the Explorer and her cousin Diego, among others.
  • Sung in the final Barney And The Backyard Gang video, "Rock with Barney."
  • Kelly and Chica performed the song in The Sunny Side Up Show.
  • The song was also sung in "Go to Camp" from the PBSKids The Berenstain Bears.
  • The song "Birthday Today" from Allegra's Window is sung to the tune of this song.
• Bing Bong's theme song from Inside Out has already become a popular playground song amongst toddlers and kindergartners, spawning a number of parodies with different lyrics, in which each of the verses after "Bing Bong, Bing Bong!" have to all rhyme with one another:
  Who's your friend who likes to play?
  Bing Bong, Bing Bong!
  His rocket makes you yell "Hooray!"
  Bing Bong, Bing Bong!
  Who's the best in every way and wants to have this song to say...
  "Bing Bong, Bing Bong!"

  Who's your friend who cries candy?
  Bing Bong, Bing Bong!
  Sometimes it's when he's hurt, sometimes it's in glee
  Bing Bong, Bing Bong!
  Even if he's sad at me, a best friend to him is what I'll be!
  Bing Bong, Bing Bong!

  Who's your friend until the end?
  Bing Bong, Bing Bong!
  A happy life is what he'll send
  Bing Bong, Bing Bong!
  Even though he's just pretend, a helping hand is what he'll lend!
  Bing Bong, Bing Bong!

  Who's your friend who fades away?
  Bing Bong, Bing Bong
  He didn't believe he was meant to stay
  Bing Bong, Bing Bong!
  Who's the one who saved the day by making himself pass away?
  Bing Bong, Bing Bong!

  Who's your friend who likes to play?
  Bing Bong, Bing Bong
  Got a rocket-ship that flies away
  Bing Bong, Bing Bong!
  Whenever you just need some fun, if it's only you or anyone, you'll never want to remain done!
  Bing Bong, Bing Bong!
• "There once was a genie with a ten foot weenie, and he showed it to the lady next door / She thought it was a snake so she smashed it with a rake, and now it's only five foot four."
• To the tune of "Taxi" by The Aardvarks, "Pepsi, Pepsi / Drink up all that Pepsi / First I drink it up / Then I burp it up"
• Hell, even Mima's theme from Touhou 2 has become a playground song. Here it is:
  Mima, Mima
  She likes to shoot people with a gun
  And if you see her
  Then get out of the way and run!
  Reimu blew up Mima
  With an AK-47
  She landed on the concrete asphalt
  But luckily never went to heaven!
• "First is the worst, second is the best, third is the one with the hairy chest". Some variants use "with the treasure chest" or "who forgot to get dressed" instead.
• "Boom Boom, Ain't It Great To Be Crazy?" is a song where each stanza before the chorus tells the story of an animal or group of animals doing something silly.
  • This song was a staple in the live shows produced for Barney & Friends, ever since "Rock With Barney" during the Backyard Gang era. The only show that didn't use it was "Barney's Birthday Bash".
  • This song also has variants that don't follow the original concept of the song. For example, one Kidsongs did a variant about a race at summer camp, and a Sesame Street book about potty training had one about wearing underwear instead of diapers.
  • This song was used for one of the interstitial music videos during the PBS Kids Bookworm Bunch block in the early 2000s (each music video featuring clips of all the shows from the block)
• "There's A Hole In The Bottom of the Sea" talks about a hole in the bottom of the ocean that fills up with many things.
  • Most children born in The Noughties will remember this song from a humorous segment from VeggieTales. It played in The Wonderful World of Auto-tainment and in the qubo version of the show as a video Junior borrowed from Larry.
  • Barney and Friends did this song in an episode about the beach.
  • Sesame Street: Performed in the "Sesame Street Sing Along" album.
  • A Cutaway Gag from Family Guy has Stewie singing this to a bunch of seniors at a retirement home.
  • In the second segment from the Futurama episode "Reincarnation", the Professor looks at a log he found in a hole in the bottom of the sea through a microscope, and he ends up finding a frog on a bump on the log, and then a snail on the tail of the frog.
  • The Electric Company (1971) did it once, using words with "oa" in them. Paul the Gorilla spoiled it by adding a banana.
• This song:
  "Alice, where are you going?"
  "Upstairs to take a bath."
  Alice, with legs like toothpicks
  And a neck like a giraffe
  Alice up in the bathtub,
  Pull out the plug and then...
  Oh my goodness, bless my soul!
  There goes Alice down the hole!
  Glug glug glug slurrrrrp!
• One popular playground song from the 1990s parodied a McGruff the Crime Dog PSA that appeared on kids' shows at the time:
  Users are losers
  And losers are users
  So don't use drugs
  Just smoke weed!
• "Little Sally Walker" is a circle game usually played by girls, where the person in the center has to copy the actions done in the song lyrics:
  Little Sally Walker
  Sittin' in a saucer
  Ride, Sally, ride
  Wipe your weepin' eyes
  Put your hands on your hips
  Let your back bone slip
  Shake it to the East
  Shake it to the West
  Shake it to the very one
  That you love the best
  • Episode 3171 of Sesame Street features a segment where Maya Angelou plays the game with some kids and Big Bird.
  • This song was sung on an episode of Gullah Gullah Island, as "Binyah Is A Baby".
  • Huey Lewis and the News performed a version on their album Soulsville.
  • The first episode of The Impossibles, "The Bubbler," had the titular group sing a variant of this song in concert called "Little Sally Ann." It was also sung in "The Return of the Spinner."
  "Little Sally Ann / Sitting in the sand / Turn to the east, and turn to the west / And turn to the very one that you love best"
• Baby Shark, which became popular after the Korean YouTube channel Pinkfong used the song in a video, which now has over four billion views.
  • Before the video became popular, there was also a version where the lyrics warned the listener of a shark attack, but many of the same lyrics were kept.
  • This is sung in the bar scene of The Angry Birds Movie 2.
  • Emagine Cinemas uses the song in its "No Talking or Phones" Warning, but changed to "Movie Theater Shark".
  • In The Simpsons episode "Bobby: It's Cold Outside", the titular family distract themselves with the song when they are stuck in a traffic jam to go to the mall to see Santa.
  • In Something About Kirby & the Amazing Mirror, the boss of Olive Ocean, Gobbler, is replaced with a yellow shark meant to invoke the baby shark in the Pinkfong video, who attacks the heroes while an-to-MIDI version of the song plays in the background.
  • In an episode of Duncanville the family's new high tech fridge plays the song at one point, causing everyone to scream in agony except five-year old Jing who enjoys the song.
• "Tommy Thumb, Tommy Thumb, where are you? Here I am, here I am, how do you do?"
  • Sung in the Tweenies episode "Wriggling Fingers".
  • There's a variant of this song called the Finger Family in which the named fingers are replaced by family member names.
    • The Finger Family song was performed by the hosts on Sunny Side Up several times, albeit with Sprout characters instead of family member names.
    • There is also a similar Japanese song to this variant called "Ohanashi Yubisan", or "Talking Fingers". While it does not share the same tune, it has a very similar premise: a finger that's supposed to represent a family member talks when the singer says its name, except in the Japanese version, adjectives are used to describe each finger (for example, the father finger is called chubby and the sister finger is fashionable).
• "Johnny, Johnny, Yes Papa" is perhaps the most popular modern example of these songs, originating from India. Like "Baby Shark", it was popularized by YouTube.
  Johnny, Johnny!
  Yes, papa?
  Eating sugar?
  No, papa!
  Telling lies?
  No, papa!
  Open your mouth!
  Ha! Ha! Ha!
  • The song was featured in a Indian commercial for Cadbury 5 Star chocolate.
• "Gu Choki Pa De Nani Tsukurou?"^note  What will we make with Rock, Paper and Scissors? is a Japanese song sung to "Where Is Thumbkin?" about making shapes with your hands.
  • There's an Anpanman version which ends with the characters pretending the hands are making the shapes of the titular character and Baikinman once the usual set of lyrics ends.
  • A Chinese version exists with a different tune. One known version appeared as a segment on the Chinese adaptation of Shima Shima Tora no Shimajirō.
  • Super Simple Songs introduced this song to the Western world with their English translation, "Rock Scissors Paper".
• A series of McDonald's commercials in the 1960s to the tune of "Down By the Riverside" led to this:
  McDonald's is your kind of place
  Hamburgers in your face
  Coca-Colas up your nose
  French Fries between your toes
  And don't forget those triple thick shakes
  Made from polluted lakes
  McDonald's is your kind of place
• The theme to Scooby-Doo, Where Are You! brought fruit to this ditty (to the tune of "Yankee Doodle"):
  Scooby Dooby Doo took a poo,
  And Shaggy thought it was candy.
  Shaggy took a bite and turned all white,
  And that's the end of Shaggy!
• World War I-era propaganda song The Moon Shines Bright on Charlie Chaplain, mocking the eponymous comedian's refusal to enlist, experienced an unusual afterlife of becoming a popular playground song among British schoolchildren in the decades after the war.
• "Yurikago no Uta" is a Japanese lullaby sung to calm crying babies down. It originally came from NHK's Minna no Uta.
  • In the 14th episode of HuGtto! Pretty Cure, the daycare workers sing this to calm down all of the crying babies. While it does successfully put them to sleep, it is at that point where Rita Yoshimi comes to the daycare to complain about how annoying their crying was, making her turn into a target of the Monster of the Week.
  • This song appeared as a segment on several episodes of Inai Inai Baa!, going back to the Rina-chan era.
  • This is sung by Emma Verde to Kanata Konoe in one of the stories in Love Live! School idol festival.
• "She'll Be Comin' Round The Mountain":
  She'll be comin' round the mountain when she comes,
  She'll be comin' round the mountain when she comes.
  She'll be comin' round the mountain
  She'll be comin' round the mountain
  She'll be comin' round the mountain when she comes!
  • Many episodes of Barney & Friends use this, most notably the Birthday Episodes for the epynomous character.
  • Donald Duck sings it as Book Ends in the short "Timber".
  • Used in The Magic School Bus episodes "Rocks and Rolls" and "For Lunch".
  • The movie Race for Your Life, Charlie Brown has Charlie Brown's camp group sing this.
  • Ocasionally, the Shelby toy will sing "Shelby comin' round the mountain..."
  • Sung in the Tweenies episode "Flying". In between each regular verse, a new one is added:
  Singin' aye aye yippy yippy aye
  Singin' aye aye yippy yippy aye
  Singin' aye aye yippy
  Aye aye yippy
  Aye aye yippy yippy aye!
  • Performed by Big Bird and the Birdketeers in the 1999 Sesame Street video "Kids' Favorite Songs."
  • This is performed at the beginning of the Disney Sing-Along Songs video "Campout At Walt Disney World" as Mickey and the kids are en route to their destination of Fort Wilderness resort.
  • The Japanese song "Picnic" uses the tune as its' chorus, but that part describes the animals the people meet. As seen in HuGtto! Pretty Cure's 9th episode, it's pretty popular to sing while hiking. It also, oddly enough, is used as an ice cream truck jingle in many Western countries.
  • Bender sings his own version in a season 1 episode of Futurama.
  • Skeeter sings this in the shower in the Doug episode "Night Of The Living Dougs".
  • The Pirates Who Don't Do Anything have performed this on a VeggieTales album.
• To the tune of Happy Birthday to You!:
  Happy birthday to you
  You live in a zoo
  You look like a monkey
  And you smell like one too!
  • This is sung to Marty in Madagascar.
• "You're Not the Boss of Me" - a singsong schoolyard refrain of kids who don't want do something another kid says, or even a parent or teaacher if they're feeling particularly cheeky. "You're not the boss of me, you're not the boss of me, you may be the boss of you, but you're not the boss of me!" Not to be confused with the theme of Malcolm in the Middle.
• "Tarzan, jungle man / Swinging from a rubber band / Fell into a garbage can / What color was his blood?"
• To the tune of America, also called My Country 'Tis of Thee:
  My country, too, can pee
  On the Statue of Liberty
  On thee I pee...
  Land where my butt has crossed
  Land where the wieners fought
  From every mountainside
  Let freedom pee!
• "I see London, I see France, I see (insert person's name's)underpants!
  • Jean Claude sings it in Rugrats in Paris after the back of Coco's dress gets ripped.
  • Cindy sings it in the The Adventures of Jimmy Neutron, Boy Genius episode "When Pants Attack", causing Carl to remark that she must have good eyesight.
  • A Pooch Café comic has Boomer start to sing this when Poncho loses his collar.
• To the tune of "The Old Gray Mare": "Teacher, teacher/There goes [insert name], floating down/on the Delaware, chewing on their underwear, can't afford/couldn't find another pair. Ten days later, eaten by a polar bear. That's how the polar bear died."
  • In Big Bully, Rosco sings this while beating up David.
  • In the The Simpsons episode "Moms I'd Like To Forget", sung by the 4th grade class to the 5th grade class.

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