My best guess would be that Jimmy Durante’s “ha-cha-cha-cha” would be the likely influence. That signature line was subsequently echoed in many cartoons after 1950 from Warner Bros. to the more contemporary Powderpuff Girls.
Never known nor heard the cha-cha-cha and I just sang it to my 3 yr old niece.
Since this is about a song, let’s move it to Cafe Society.
Colibri
General Questions Moderator
Or, more likely, the cha-cha.
Jimmy Durante, (as noted), only said “Ha cha cha.”
I think the Chipmunks might actually be the source of any new infestations.
At the time that the original records were produced, adding “cha cha cha” to the end of various verses of a lot of different songs was a very wide phenomenon, (hence, its inclusion on the Chipmunks record). The recent movies could have simply copied that little schtick out of the originals almost by accident or some nostalgic Boomer on the film’s crew could have made sure that it was included.
I had never heard this phenomenon at all until about 5 years ago… since then, kids have done it at EVERY birthday party I’ve been to.
I remember hearing it grade school, so that would be 20-25ish years ago.
I have one kid in college and another in high school and this was common when they were little. It seems I may have seen it on Barney, too.
However, it never happened when I was a kid.
My daughter is 7 and it has happened at all of her parties.
If you google the complete phrase “happy birthday to you cha cha cha” there are a ton of hits.
Never heard it with “Happy Birthday” (and it can’t be any more annoying than that obnoxious harmonizing on the last line–can it?), but it was appended to “Old MacDonald” ca. 1959, and later, the Chipmunks (them again) picked up on that. It was popular for kids to add it at the ends of verses as far back as the early 1960s.
What about, “you look like a monkey, and you smell like one too!!!”?
Huh. I always thought of it as 3/4 followed by 4/4. And while I’ve not heard the chachacha’s ever recorded, I have heard that particular rhythm pattern, both for the entire song, and just for the third line as a way of keeping the fermata in some sort of time.
Here it is on Youtube. No one is singing chachacha, but you can hear instruments where the words are normally sung. The part on “happy” seems to be sixteenth notes, though. And it’s in 4/4 throughout, using jazz syncopation to emulate the 3/4.
I’ve always heard it started as the birthday song for the old restaurant Chi-Chi’s.
It’s annoying, but it seems to disappear around the ninth birthday.
I didn’t realize it ‘came from’ anywhere or see it as a reference to anything. I thought it emerged as a reaction to people getting bored of the song because it’s slowish and dull, and you’re forced to sing very often (particularly when you’re in school).
BRAAAAAAINS … cha cha cha … BRAAAAAAAAAINNS … cha cha cha …
Apparently, it’s been around a while or at least this this video makes it seem so. The guy who made it died in 2004.
Other than zombie children singing it that way, it’s not that popular a variation in my region.
I prefer the short birthday song.
This is your birthday song
It isn’t very long
Really? 'Cause I hear it being done for grown-ass adults. I just assumed that it was some kind of obnoxious white-bread cultural meme picked up from Friends or Seinfeld that in my efforts to maintain my calm I either blotted out of my mind or missed entirely.
The only time anyone should say, “Cha-cha-cha!” is if they’re dancing a rumba or appearing on an Argentine television program of the same name.
Stranger
When my son was in elementary school in the 1990s, the birthday child was given the option of having Happy Birthday being sung to him/her either with or without the cha-cha-cha addition. If kids are at a birthday celebration, invariably one will add the cha-chas.