Bananaphone

Bananaphone is the name of an album released in 1996 and a humorous song by the children's entertainer Raffi, written in 1994. The lyrics describe a combination between a banana and a telephone, using many puns ("It's a phone with appeal!") and nonsense words like "bananular" and "interactive-odular".

Track listing

1. Bananaphone
2. Shake A Toe
3. The World We Love
4. Slow Day
5. The Changing Garden Of Mr. Bell
6. Naturally
7. Spring Flowers – Instrumental
8. C-A-N-A-D-A
9. Michael Row The Boat Ashore
10. First Peoples
11. Dee Myth – Instrumental
12. Cowlit Night
13. The Gorilla Song
14. Simple Gifts
15. Down By The Riverside
16. The Shmenge Polka (A tribute to John Candy) – Instrumental

The Flash

The song was popularized as the soundtrack for a Flash animation named osakaphone.swf, which features a wiggling Gundam in a banana suit being held by a Shift-JIS art rendition of the character Osaka from the manga/anime Azumanga Daioh. This animation first appeared on cookiethievery.com. The picture of Osaka, drawn in a style characteristic of 2ch, was from the 4chan forum, introduced by "Shii". The song used in the Flash is sped up from the original by +9 semitones, making it livelier and more humorous than the original.

A later Flash, bananaphone.swf, was made by combining the song from Bananaphone and the visuals from the Flash Badger Badger Badger (with Bananaphone additions); it can be found at lemonizer.com's list of mirrors. It was created by a user of the General Mayhem forums after the original Flash was posted there.

The Gundam "Bananaphone" itself has now appeared elsewhere, although since it has no resemblance to a phone outside of the original Flash this is something of a misnomer.

The song also appeared in a bizarre animation by Dave Teatro of The Friend Society involving spontaneous hemorrhages.

The sped up version of the song has been used as an audio gag on the Opie & Anthony Show on XM Satellite Radio starting the week of January 31, 2005. Anytime a phone is mentioned during the show, one of the hosts plays this song in an effort to get it stuck in their listeners' heads.

Lyrics

Ring ring ring ring ring ring ring bananaphone
Ring ring ring ring ring ring ring bananaphone

I've got this feeling, it's so appealing
For us to get together and sing, sing!

Ring ring ring ring ring ring ring bananaphone
Ding dong ding dong ding dong ding donanaphone

It grows in bunches
I've got my hunches
It's the best, beats the rest
Cellular, Modular, Interactive-odular

Ring ring ring ring ring ring ring bananaphone
Ping pong ping pong ping pong ping pananaphone

It’s no baloney
It ain’t a phoney
My cellular, bananular phone

(NOTE: At this point in the Flash animation, the song, and the animation, reaches its end and starts to loop.)

Don’t need quarters, don’t need dimes
To call a friend of mine
Don’t need computers or TV
To have a real good time
I call for pizza, I call my cat
I call the White House, have a chat
I place a call around the world
Operator get me Beijing jing jing jing

(Musical Break)

Ring ring ring ring ring ring ring bananaphone
Ying yang ying yang ying yang ying yananaphone

It’s a real live mama and papaphone
A brother and a sister and a dogophone
A grandpa phone and a grandma phone too, oh yeah
My cellular, bananular phone

Bananaphone, ring ring ring It’s a phone with appeal
Bananaphone, ring ring ring Now you can have your phone and eat it too
Bananaphone, ring ring ring this song drives me, bananas
Bananaphone, ring ring ring...

External links

• The Bananaphone Flash Animation
• Bananaphone album by Raffi
• Banana phone lyrics