"Johnny Johnny Yes Papa" is an English-language nursery rhyme. The song is about a child, Johnny, who is caught by his father eating sugar when he is not supposed to. Versions of this song comprising more than one verse usually continue with variations on this theme.

History

A 1989 book by the American scholar and professor

Francelia Butler Francelia McWilliams Butler (April 25, 1913 – September 18, 1998) was an American scholar, pioneer and writer of children's literature.Kenya ) , national_anthem = " Ee Mungu Nguvu Yetu"() , image_map = , map_caption = , image_map2 = , capital = Nairobi , coordinates = , largest_city = Nairobi ...

in 1980. According to Vinoth Chandar, the CEO of

ChuChu TV ChuChu TV is an Indian network of YouTube channels that creates edutainment content for children. The channel currently has 60 million subscribers, which makes it the 8th most subscribed YouTube channel in India and 22nd globally. The channel ha ...

, it was already old enough to have been in the

public domain The public domain (PD) consists of all the creative work to which no exclusive intellectual property rights apply. Those rights may have expired, been forfeited, expressly waived, or may be inapplicable. Because those rights have expired, ...

in India by 2018, indicating that it would have been at least 60 years old (per Indian copyright law); Chandar wrote in 2018 that he "used to hear it" as a child, and that elderly people would also have listened to it as children.

Lyrics

The lyrics to the song are in a

call and response Call and response is a form of interaction between a speaker and an audience in which the speaker's statements ("calls") are punctuated by responses from the listeners. This form is also used in music, where it falls under the general category of ...

format, and typically sung to the tune of "

Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star" is a popular English lullaby. The lyrics are from an early-19th-century English poem written by Jane Taylor, "The Star". The poem, which is in couplet form, was first published in 1806 in '' Rhymes for the Nurser ...

". The original and most well-known version of the song is:

YouTube videos

The song was featured on YouTube in 2007, where it was used in an Indian commercial for the 5 Star chocolate brand. It was also featured on YouTube as a nursery rhyme in 2009 by the channel Shemrock Nursery Rhymes. The nursery rhyme has been recreated by many other

edutainment Educational entertainment (also referred to as edutainment) is media designed to educate through entertainment. The term was used as early as 1954 by Walt Disney. Most often it includes content intended to teach but has incidental entertainmen ...

YouTube channels targeting young children. As of 20 August 2020, a video containing the song, misspelt as "Johny" and uploaded to YouTube by Loo Loo Kids in 2016, has more than 5.7 billion views, making it the third-most-viewed video on the site, as well as the most-viewed nursery rhyme video and one of the top 10 most-disliked YouTube videos. Another video of the song, uploaded by

in 2014, has more than 1.7 billion views, another uploaded by CVS 3D Rhymes in 2017 has over 1.2 billion views, and a further video in Spanish uploaded by FAMA JAMA has over a billion views. Another video was listed in 2015 by ''

The Daily Dot ''The Daily Dot'' is a digital media company covering the culture of the Internet and the World Wide Web. Founded by Nicholas White in 2011, ''The Daily Dot'' is headquartered in Austin, Texas. The site, conceived as the Internet's "hometo ...

'' as one of eleven "unintentionally disturbing" YouTube videos for children. A parody of the nursery rhyme was uploaded by the user EdukayFUN on October 9, 2014. It uses intentionally uncanny CGI animation and ends with Johnny being eaten by his father. The channel was terminated in 2018, but still uploads videos as EdukayFUN 2.0. The original parody video was reuploaded in June 2020 in 4K HD.

Internet meme

Dancing

The song became an internet meme in August 2018, with one version by the Indian channel Billion Surprise Toys—a company with 49 million subscribers to its YouTube channel—going particularly viral on Twitter. This version prominently features Johny and his father doing popular dance moves such as the " Gangnam Style" dance, and intertwines the original lyrics with a repeated " doo-doo-doo-da-doo" to the melody of "

Baby Shark "Baby Shark" is a children's song associated to a dance involving hand movements that originated as a campfire song dating back to at least the 20th century. In 2016, "Baby Shark" became very popular when Pinkfong, a South Korean entertainment ...

". The various videos by edutainment channels were subsequently described as "terrifying", "disturbing", "nonsensical" and "a godforsaken nightmare". The song's popularity has been attributed to the

Elsagate Elsagate is a neologism referring to the controversy surrounding videos on YouTube and YouTube Kids that are categorized as "child-friendly", but which contain themes that are inappropriate for children. Most videos under this classification ar ...

phenomenon of potentially disturbing or absurd YouTube videos being algorithmically shown to children through the YouTube website and the

YouTube Kids YouTube Kids is an American video app and website for children developed by YouTube, a subsidiary of Google. The app provides a version of the service oriented solely towards children, with curated selections of content, parental control feature ...

app. ''

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'', '' Mashable'' and ''

New York Magazine ''New York'' is an American biweekly magazine concerned with life, culture, politics, and style generally, and with a particular emphasis on New York City. Founded by Milton Glaser and Clay Felker in 1968 as a competitor to ''The New Yorker' ...

'' found "remixes" by Billion Surprise Toys, one featuring an anthropomorphic refrigerator (as the liar), to be particularly absurd, even when compared to other "Johny Johny Yes Papa" videos. The Verge went on further to explain that "Each video features a child and their family lying to one another as a form of affection." Shortly after the song went viral, Billion Surprise Toys began to issue aggressive

DMCA The Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) is a 1998 United States copyright law that implements two 1996 treaties of the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO). It criminalizes production and dissemination of technology, devices, or ...

takedown requests for videos and images derived from its own videos published on social media. This move was considered controversial for various reasons. Firstly, because of the unclear copyright status of the song itself, secondly because

American copyright law The copyright law of the United States grants monopoly protection for "original works of authorship". With the stated purpose to promote art and culture, copyright law assigns a set of exclusive rights to authors: to make and sell copies of thei ...

permits parodies as a form of

fair use Fair use is a doctrine in United States law that permits limited use of copyrighted material without having to first acquire permission from the copyright holder. Fair use is one of the limitations to copyright intended to balance the interests ...

, and thirdly, because the UAE (Billion Surprise Toys' native country) allows for "The reproduction of the work for the purpose of personal, non-profit and non-professional use" under their fair use laws.

References