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‘Johny Johny Yes Papa’ is a terrifyingly catchy YouTube kids’ abomination

Becoming a meme? Yes Papa!

 

Brittany Vincent

Internet Culture

Posted on Aug 28, 2018   Updated on May 21, 2021, 7:44 am CDT

It’s no surprise that kids’ cartoons on YouTube are a terrifying hellscape of bad CG animation, disturbing concepts, and sometimes ridiculously catchy songs that you can’t get out of your head for days.

The Johny Johny Yes Papa series has all of those things. There are different variations of the “nursery rhyme,” but all the videos share one similarity: A bizarre interaction between a young boy, Johny, and his father, Papa. Johny has been eating things he shouldn’t be, apparently (sugar? toothpaste??) and that’s no good.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IJtxHpCqIU4&t=4s

Papa accuses little Johny of eating sugar, to which Johny replies he hasn’t. Papa says he’s been “telling lies,” so Papa asks the little boy to “open his mouth,” to “prove” he hasn’t been eating something he wasn’t supposed to. Because he couldn’t possibly have swallowed the offending food, right? Here are the lyrics:

“Johny! Johny!
Yes, Papa?
Eating sugar?
No Papa,
Telling a lie?
No Papa,
Open your mouth,
Ha! Ha! Ha!”

Of course, these are just some of the weird happenings in the video. Don’t think it ends there, not by a long shot.

It’s uncomfortably weird, like when Johny says “ha ha ha!” after being accused of eating toothpaste, or when Papa asks Johny to wake up from what appears to be the living room while Johny is upstairs in bed. Also, no one wants to watch Johny bathing or putting clothes on. Also, everyone simply nags everyone else in these videos. What’s gong on with that huge colorful ice cream cone, anyway?

Not to mention the fact that Johny doesn’t even get to say breakfast, apparently. He tries to eat a sandwich at the family table and is chided by Papa for doing so, so the child has had no breakfast. What lesson is that teaching again, other than a sandwich isn’t traditional breakfast food? Your guess is as good as ours.

At the end of this particular video, Johny is in bed with the huge ice cream cone as both of them enjoy lollipops. …What?

There’s a multitude of strange, cringe-inducing elements that come together to make these videos feel totally weird and slimy, but perhaps the strangest is Johny’s enormous head, the hilariously bad animation, and just about everything else.

Who’s to blame? Who came up with this weirdness that none of us, especially Twitter denizens, can YouTube channel Billion Surprise Toys birthed this monstrosity, and now it’s taking over the internet.

https://twitter.com/kkumokaa/status/1033457006282035201

https://twitter.com/Feazbull/status/1034276774375567360

There’s, uh, even one with Family Guy’s “Peter Griffin” in it for some reason? That’s a Dollar Store Peter Griffin, but still.

Interestingly enough, there’s a 2018 Indian action flick called Johnny Johnny Yes Papa, which is not related. But it sure would be cool if it was.

If for some reason you want to go down the rabbit hole even further and spend some time checking out all these terrifying kids’ songs, including more Johny Johny Yes Papa, there’s even a whole subreddit dedicated to it.

Honestly, the remix is pretty nuts, too.

But try as you might, you won’t be able to get this ludicrous set of videos out of your head. Or your nightmares.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5mUSsNNMx_o

Seriously, just…please stop making these videos.


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*First Published: Aug 28, 2018, 12:44 pm CDT