Frère Jacques in popular culture

The song "Frère Jacques" often appears in popular culture. Frère Jacques is one of the most widely-known songs on earth, and it can be found many places in modern world culture. For example:

• A version of the Frère Jacques tune appears in the third movement of the Symphony No. 1 by Gustav Mahler. Mahler presents the melody in a minor key instead of a major key, thus giving the piece the character of a funeral march or dirge; however, the mode change to minor might not have been an invention by Mahler, as is often believed, but rather the way this round was sung in the 19th century and early 20th century in Austria.
• Francesca Draughon and Raymond Knapp argue http://www.echo.ucla.edu/Volume3-issue2/knapp_draughon/knapp_draughon1.html that Mahler had changed the key to make Frère Jacques sound more "Jewish" (Mahler converted to Catholicism from Judaism). When it was first performed, many thought it was a parody or grotesque. Draughon and Knapp claim that the tune was originally sung to mock non-Catholics, such as Protestants or Jews. To support this, they point out that the subject of one version of the lyrics in Austria was "Bruder Martin", a possible reference to Bruder Martin Luther, and another Austrian version was about a "Bruder Jakob". Mahler himself called the tune "Bruder Martin", and made some allusions to the piece being related to a parody in the programs he wrote for the performances. Many also detect Gypsy influences in this Mahler work. Interpretations similar to this are quite prevalent in academia and in musical circles.
• The French performer known as Le Pétomane entertained live audiences in the late 19th and early 20th centuries with his own unique rendition of Frère Jacques, according to the BBC.
• Frère Jacques has led to many parodies. For example, Allan Sherman is noted for writing new lyrics to Frère Jacques based on typical Jewish-American family gossip and small talk. The resulting song, "Sarah Jackman", became quite famous at the time, and led to Sherman's career in musical parody.
• Versions of Frère Jacques can be reproduced using a DTMF ("touch-tone ") telephone keypad (the push-button telephone dialing system prevalent in the USA, Canada and some other countries). The article on numbered musical notation uses Frère Jacques as an example, and demonstrates that numbered musical notation systems like jianpu and the Ziffersystem have some similarity to DTMF representations of tunes.
• Henry Bernstein, a French playwright, wrote a comedic play entitled Frère Jacques (translated as Brother Jacques) with Pierre Véber in 1904.
• Mon Frère Jacques was a French comedic film directed by Marcel Manchez, and released in 1925.
• Frère Jacques is a type of semi-soft cow's milk cheese with a mild hazelnut taste, produced by Benedictine monks from the Saint-Benoit-du-lac Abbey in Quebec, Canada.
• The "Mouseketeer" series of Tom and Jerry cartoons released from 1952–1958 featured French renditions of Frère Jacques, sung by Francoise Brun-Cottan in her portrayal of the young gray mouse Tuffy, in the Oscar-nominated Touché, Pussy Cat! and in Royal Cat Nap.
• Four French singers, brothers André and Georges Bellec, François Soubeyran and Paul Tourenne formed a comedic singing group in 1944 known as the Frères Jacques, even though none of them were named "Jacques". The group name was a bit of a play on words since a common French expression, "faire le jacques", means to act like a clown. They had successful careers over the next few decades.
• Leonard Bernstein made use of Frère Jacques to illustrate counterpoint in his television program What Makes Music Symphonic?(one of a series of 53 programs, the Young People's Concerts with the New York Philharmonic, combining music and lectures that were televised between 1959 and 1972).
• The demonstrators in Tiananmen Square chanted political slogans to the tune of Frère Jacques.
• There is a strong oral tradition among children in China, Vietnam and other places in Asia of passing on songs with their own lyrics, sung to the tune of Frère Jacques. For example, one of the most popular version of the lyric among Chinese children is about "two tigers."
• In one Loopy de Loop cartoon, Loopy sings a song to the tune of Frère Jacques.
• In the background of the Beatles' song Paperback Writer one can hear George Harrison and John Lennon singing Frère Jacques.
• The Wildhearts song "You Are Proof That Not All Women Are Insane" from their 2009 album ¡Chutzpah! ends with a rock style rendition of Frère Jacques in Danish
• Brian Wilson's song "Surf's Up" uses a reference to Frère Jacques.
• Not to be outdone by his heroes above, Jeff Lynne added a recording of Dutch children singing "Frère Jacques" to Hello My Old Friend, an unreleased track from the Electric Light Orchestra's Secret Messages album.
• The 1973 Spanish horror film with the US title House of Psychotic Women directed by Carlos Aured made use of the song Frère Jacques to set the mood.
• Frère Jacques is also the name of a chain of franchised French restaurants in the UK and the name of a French restaurant in the Murray Hill section of New York City. Les Frères Jacques is the name of a French restaurant in Dublin.
• The post-punk group Television Personalities used Frère Jacques as the chorus to their song "Hello Edward", found on their album 'Paisley Shirts & Mini Skirts' (1996).
• Ron Haselden, a British artist living in the French town of Brizard, in Brittany, has produced a well-known interactive multimedia piece featuring Frère Jacques in collaboration with Peter Cusack.
• The Swedish punk rock band Millencolin closed the song "That's Up To Me" on their 1994 Skauch album with a rendition of Frère Jacques on a kazoo.
• The Frère version of the Jerusalem computer virus plays Frère Jacques if the day is Friday or on the 13th of any month.
• Sam Shaber, a New York City folksinger, released a song based on Frère Jacques on her 1999 album, "perfecT".
• The Matthew Shipp Quartet jazz group's album Pastoral Composure in the year 2000 includes a piece called Frère Jacques that draws on the Frère Jacques melody.
• The Chinese song "Dadao lie qiang" ("Cut down the great powers", or rather: "Let's beat together the great powers", also known as 'The "Revolution of the Citizens" Song') celebrates the cooperation in China in the 1920s of Mao Zedong's Chinese Communist Party and the Kuomintang against warlords and imperialist powers, and is sung to the tune of Frère Jacques.
• On an episode of Sports Night, Dan Rydell, after finding out that the song Happy Birthday is copyrighted (and the station is being sued for copyright infringement, since Dan sung it to his partner Casey on air), decides to sing songs that are in the public domain, and settles on Frère Jacques for his boss Isaac.
• Argentine composer Juan Maria Solare's piece "Frère Jacques the Ripper (deconstructing the Canon) for Flute, Clarinet, Violin and Cello" transforms the familiar "Frère Jacques" melody by altering the speed, the tonality, the key, inverting the tune and applying fractal transformations to the tune. This piece was performed in Cologne in 2003.
• In 1971, the Allman Brothers Band slipped in the "Frère Jacques" melody during the extended jam portion of "Whipping Post" on their At Fillmore East album. It can be heard starting at about 17 minutes and 40 seconds into the song. The melody is transposed into the key of C.
• The song "Underdog" by Sly and the Family Stone starts and ends with a version of the "Frère Jacques" tune.
• In the beginning of Team America: World Police, a child is shown singing "Frère Jacques".
• The Band Blues Traveler sings a song "Brother John" off of their album "Four" which references the song.
• In an episode of Justice League called "Only a Dream", Batman humms "Frère Jacques" in order to prevent a villain from entering his mind.
• In the 1984 film The Razor's Edge, Brian Doyle-Murray sings "Frère Jacques" to injured French servicemen while he and Bill Murray transport them during a World War I battle.
• Frere Jacques is remixed by Jean Jacques Perrey and Luke Vibert on their 2007 album, Moog Acid.
• Frere Jacques appears in The Sims 2: FreeTime as a nursery rhyme for little sims as they play together, but they must learn the rhyme first.
• In the game "BioShock", a Little Sister sings to the tune of Frère Jacques.
• The song is referenced several times in the television series Star Trek: The Next Generation; Jean-Luc Picard and the winners of a school science fair sing it in "Disaster", it was one of the first tunes that Captain Picard, as Kamin, learned to play on his Ressikan flute in "The Inner Light", and Picard and Nella Daren performed a canon of it in "Lessons".
• British military cadets have traditionally sung the tune with different words as a taunt to visiting French military cadets during visits to British military academies. The words are the names of British military victories over the French:
• In the Angelina Ballerina: The Next Steps episode 'Angelina and the Irish Jig', Mrs. Thimble sings the song when Angelina tries to find some irish music for her friend Vicki, but Mrs. Thimble doesn't have any irish music so she suggests to Angelina how about some french music instead.
• In the 2004 film Around the World in 80 Days, Jackie Chan sings it in China

Agincourt, Agincourt

Crecy too; Crecy too

Nile and Trafalgar, Nile and Trafalgar

Waterloo. Waterloo.

• A remix of Frère Jacques appears in the game Twisted Metal 2.(The Paris level.)
• The song is featured at the end of an episode of the sitcom Family Matters (Season 6, Episode 4, "The Looney Bin") in which custodian Alfred Looney (pronounced 'loo-nay' according to Alfred, claiming it is French) sings the first line of the song and Steve Urkel joins in with the second line. Alfred then sings, "Going to get some bean dip," and Steve responds with, "Put it on a 'tater chip," and the two together sing, "How 'bout you? How 'bout you?"
• The song is used in a piece by Béla Bartók called For Children #5.
• The song was recorded by Together Again Productions as part of their Kidsongs music and music video collections.
• An episode of Sesame Street's "Elmo's World" about singing contains a young girl singing the song with the alternate lyrics "Where is Bumpkin" and then a young boy singing the alternate "Where is Bumpkin" lyrics in Spanish.
• As part of "Weird Al" Yankovic's always-extending "Yoda Chant" he always does at concerts, he and his band sing the song through once. After Al sings the first line solo, two of the other members, Jim West and Steve Jay, join in on the second line, but they jump ahead of him, starting on the subsequent lines of the song, suggesting that the round had already begun. While Al is still on "Dormez-vous?", Jim starts on "Sonnez les matines." Once Al begins singing, Steve sings the second "Frere Jacques" along with him before immediately going into "Din-dan-don."
• Bart and Lisa, as French children, sing the song in Episode 11, Season 18 of The Simpsons, "Revenge is a Dish Best Served Three Times".
• The English version song is featured in the television series Dexter season 1 episode 2 when he sings it to his girlfriends children as they sleep.
• The song was featured repeatedly in the 1978 Disney television film Child of Glass.