# "Who dat say 'who dat' when I say 'who dat?'"

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-dat-say-who-dat-when-i-say-who-dat/3438>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [September 24, 1999, 3:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-dat-say-who-dat-when-i-say-who-dat/3438 "1999-09-24T03:27:00Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 7\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Earl\_Snake-Hips\_Tucker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/earl_snake-hips_tucker/32/3269_2.png) [@Earl\_Snake-Hips\_Tucker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Earl_Snake-Hips_Tucker)\
**Post date:** [September 24, 1999, 3:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-dat-say-who-dat-when-i-say-who-dat/3438/1 "1999-09-24T03:27:00Z")

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I remember seeing this exchange in a cartoon many years ago.

I’ve _heard_ that it was also in a Bowery Boys movie “Spooks Run Wild,” but I’ve never seen that one.

Anyone else ever head this expression?

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**Author:** ![Just\_Ed](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e19b73/32.png) [@Just\_Ed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Just_Ed)\
**Post date:** [September 24, 1999, 3:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-dat-say-who-dat-when-i-say-who-dat/3438/2 "1999-09-24T03:56:00Z")

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Woody Woodpecker, I beleive. IIRC, it was a scene where Woody is sitting on the shoulders of his nemesis character, who starts the exchange, “Who dat?”  
“Me.”  
“Who dat say ‘Me’?”  
“Me say me!”  
"Who dat say “Me say me’?”  
. . . ad infinitum.

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**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\
**Post date:** [September 24, 1999, 4:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-dat-say-who-dat-when-i-say-who-dat/3438/3 "1999-09-24T04:43:00Z")

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My dad quoted that joke once or twice. I think he picked it up in NC (Fort Bragg) during WWII.

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Tom~

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**Author:** ![Diver](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/858c86/32.png) [@Diver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diver)\
**Post date:** [September 24, 1999, 2:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-dat-say-who-dat-when-i-say-who-dat/3438/4 "1999-09-24T14:03:00Z")

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Anyone else ever head this expression?

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The first remembrance I have of it concerned a story/joke about a guy that fell in an open grave at night and a guy that walked by. The exchange between the pair ended with something akin to " Who dat updair who say who dat downdair when I say who dat updair, Who dat?"  
This was in the fifties as I recall.

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**Author:** ![system](https://global.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/original/2X/e/e489c3b7d8fce19c4b355dd4fc3f88cc39c34b87.png) [@system](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/system)\
**Post date:** [September 24, 1999, 2:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-dat-say-who-dat-when-i-say-who-dat/3438/5 "1999-09-24T14:08:00Z")

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Actually, sad to say, I think this joke originated in a Stepin Fetchit movie back in the 30s and ‘caught on’ from there. I believe I saw it used in an Abbott and Costello movie, once, probably one of their “Meets” Frankenstein, Dracula, the Wolfman, the Invisible Man, et al.

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**Author:** ![John\_W.Kennedy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_w.kennedy/32/1031_2.png) [@John\_W.Kennedy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_W.Kennedy)\
**Post date:** [September 24, 1999, 3:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-dat-say-who-dat-when-i-say-who-dat/3438/6 "1999-09-24T15:46:00Z")

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My eighth-grade English teacher, a veteran, told us it was a traditional WWII airman’s gag when pilots got bored with (in their opinion, unnecessary) radio silence.

“Who dat?”

“Who dat who say, ‘Who dat?’?”

“Who dat who say, ‘Who dat who say, “Who dat?”?’?”

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John W. Kennedy  
“Compact is becoming contract; man only earns and pays.”  
– Charles Williams

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**Author:** ![Ukulele\_Ike](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/df788c/32.png) [@Ukulele\_Ike](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ukulele_Ike)\
**Post date:** [September 24, 1999, 4:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-dat-say-who-dat-when-i-say-who-dat/3438/7 "1999-09-24T16:46:00Z")

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There was that bizarre, racist scene in the otherwise deligthful Marx Brothers movie A DAY AT THE RACES (1937), where all the black people in the ghetto come out to sing and dance with Harpo…started off with a litany of “Who dat man???”

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Uke