"Johny Johny Yes Papa" is an English-language nursery rhyme. The song is about a child, Johny, who is caught by his father eating sugar. 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 Jessica Wilson states that the nursery rhyme originated in Kenya. According to Vinoth Chandar, the CEO of ChuChu TV, it was already old enough to have been in the public domain in India by 2018, indicating that it would have been at least 60 years old ; 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 format, and typically sung to the tune of "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star". The original and most well-known version of the song is:
Music videos
According to Polygon, it was first published on YouTube as a nursery rhyme in 2009 by the channel ShemrockNursery Rhymes. However, the song was first featured on YouTube in 2007, where it was used in an Indian 5 Star commercial. The nursery rhyme has been recreated by many other edutainment YouTube channels targeting young children. As of 23 July 2020, a video containing the song, uploaded to YouTube by Loo Loo Kids in 2016, has more than 3.6 billion views, making it the eighth-most-viewed video on the site, as well as the second-most-viewed nursery rhyme video and one of the top 10 most-disliked YouTube videos. Another video of the song, uploaded by ChuChu TV in 2014, has more than 1.7 billion views and a further video containing the song, uploaded by CVS 3D Rhymes in 2017, has over 1.2 billion views. Another video was listed in 2015 by The Daily Dot as one of eleven "unintentionally disturbing" YouTube videos for children.
Internet meme
The song became an internet meme in August 2018, with one version by Billion Surprise Toys—a company with 16 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". 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 phenomenon of potentially disturbing or absurd YouTube videos being algorithmically shown to children through the YouTube website and the YouTube Kids app. The Verge, Mashable and New York Magazine found "remixes" by Billion Surprise Toys, one featuring an anthropomorphic refrigerator, to be particularly absurd, even when compared to other "Johny Johny Yes Papa" videos. Shortly after the song went viral, Billion Surprise Toys began to issue aggressive DMCA 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 permits parodies as a form of fair use, and thirdly, because the UAE allows for "The reproduction of the work for the purpose of personal, non-profit and non-professional use" under their fair use laws. In 2017, BBC's UK kids series Teletubbies did an impersonation of the song on their YouTube channel. In May 2019, Nick Jr.'s official YouTube channel parodied the song as "Villains Nursery Rhyme Remix".
