Is this video real? What is going on?

[Muad_Dib]

Happidai - Yatta!

That song sounds familiar. I think it came from one of those insane flash cartoons that was making the rounds a while back (you know the ones with Mr Bean, Pee Wee, and Colin Mochrie).

Is this video for real? If you understand the language will it make sense? Or are the Japanese that, umm…, “Zanny”?

[evilhanz]

Yes, it’s for real. Yes, it is deliberately silly and outrageous. The group is known as Happatai (The Green Leaf Men). They are roughly the Japanese equivalent of the Village People. Yatta means (“I did it!”) by the way.

[evilhanz]

The hamsters are at work today. I neglected to mention that this is the original source of the Yatta song seen in the Irrational Exuberance animation.

[Nametag]

A translation can be found here: http://web.mit.edu/patil/www/web/yatta.txt

And here we have the straight dope: http://www.penismightier.com/main.php?start=1704

“Yatta” is more or less the work of a comedy duo called “Ucchan-Nanchan” (after the two guys’ names: Uchimura and Nanbara). The have a tv show that’s sort of half variety-show, half sketch comedy, and “Yatta” started out as a sketch on that show. The sketch was about a mythical music group called “Happa-tai” (Leaf Squad, more or less) where all the members wear only a leaf and sing this happy song called “Yatta” (literally, “I did it”, figuratively “Yeah” or “All right!” It’s what Chun-Li says when she wins). It was just absurdist, there’s no deep meaning.