Happy Birthday to You: Difference between revisions
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''We wish it was our birthday, so we could party too!''
''Happy happy birthday, may all your dreams come true!''
''We wish it was our birthday, so we could party too!|''[[The Emperor's
{{quote|'''Isaac:''' Someone holds the copyright to "Happy Birthday
'''Dan:''' The representatives of Patty and Mildred Hill.
'''Isaac:''' ...Took two people to write that song?|''[[Sports Night]]'' episode 1x04, "Intellectual Property"}}
It may well be an old standard, but up until the middle-late 2010s the song "Happy Birthday to You" was not in the public domain. (The copyright expired in the European Union on January 1, 2017. In the United States, a federal court ruled in 2016 that the song is in the public domain and had been for decades, contrary to claims by [[w:Warner/Chappell Music|Warner/Chappell Music]].<ref>Ironically, filmmaker Jennifer Nelson was doing a documentary on "Happy Birthday" and had paid US$1500 to Warner/Chappell to secure the rights to actually use the song in her film. Then her research for the film turned up several bogus/dubious links in the chain of ownership Warner/Chappell claimed gave them copyright to the song, along with legal experts who believed the song was public domain. She sued for her money back in 2013, and in September 2015 federal judge George H. King ruled that Warner/Chappell could not prove that it had ''ever'' held the copyright to the song; at the final settlement in June 2016, Warner/Chappell ended up paying out US$14 million to those it had charged for licenses over the years, and the song was definitely ruled as being in the public domain. Prior to this, Warner/Chappell had been raking in approximately US$2 million a year on "Happy Birthday" licenses.</ref> Oh, and the copyright expired in 1985 in Canada. That makes this now a [[Discredited Trope]], and possibly even a [[Dead Horse Trope]].)
As a result, when a birthday is being celebrated on television or in the movies, it's fairly rare for those involved to actually sing "Happy Birthday to You." "For He's A Jolly Good Fellow" is often substituted (British shows may use "A Fine Old English Gentleman" instead), unlike in the real world, where singing anything ''other'' than "Happy Birthday To You" is almost unheard of (except when the singers are the waitstaff of certain chain restaurants, for exactly the same reason). Given the events cited above, this will no doubt change -- in fact, it has ''already'' changed for many of those chain restaurants -- but for now nearly every work you'll encounter will probably be using an alternative or [[The Jimmy Hart Version]].
The fact that a little ditty sung thousands of times a day around the world, and which only contains five words (not counting the person's name), is subject to copyright laws is serious [[Snark Bait]]. How they even keep track of which movies that aren't huge blockbusters even have it? The fact that you can be sued for realistically portraying a North American birthday party is mind-boggling. This case of copyright laws gone too far is often subject to [[Lampshade Hanging]].▼
▲The fact that a little ditty sung thousands of times a day around the world, and which only contains five words (not counting the person's name),
▲Incidentally, while the lyrics to "Happy Birthday to You" are still under copyright, the melody is ''not''. It was [[To the Tune Of|borrowed from an older song]], "Good Morning to All." So, instrumental or foreign-language versions are exempt from this rule.
{{examples}}▼
▲{{examples}}
== [[Anime]] ==
* ''[[Space Runaway Ideon]]'' second movie had children singing it...right after the [[Kill'Em All]] slaughterfest.
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** In the dubbed version, though, she sings a different birthday song. And "Kimurin" sings a ''really'' different one.
** ''Zoku [[Sayonara, Zetsubou-sensei]]'' gets away with a [[Gratuitous English]] version of the song, too.
* The ''[[Sakura Taisen]]'' TV series has an episode where the mostly-Asian team tries to celebrate Iris' birthday in the Western manner to which she is accustomed, including an attempt at singing an original "happy birthday" song. Kanna is [[Call Back|still singing bits of the song to herself several episodes later]]...
* In an episode of ''[[Keroro Gunsou]]'', Keroro gets Mutsumi to compose an original birthday song for Natsumi's surprise party. [[Lampshade Hanging|Lampshaded]] in the dub, where Keroro tells Mutsumi that he's in charge of "non-copyright-infringing birthday song composition."
* A particularly [[Tear Jerker|soul-crushing]] variant occurs in an episode of ''[[Fist of the North Star]]'', with little Lynn singing the most depressing rendition of the song you'll ever hear after the birthday girl's brother is murdered by bandits.
* The Japanese dub of ''[[Nightwalker]]'' uses the traditional melody, although with different lyrics, in one episode. The same scene in the English dub does the same, with another set of lyrics.
* ''[[Mayo Chiki]]'' has an original birthday song composed for Kureha's birthday. Compared to other substitutions, it's not a bad song.
* "Happy Birthday to You" is sung - in English - in the original Japanese version of ''[[Nadia: The Secret of Blue Water]]''.
== Film ==
* In ''[[The Kentucky Fried Movie]]'', a character remembers his name by singing "Happy Birthday to You." The directors' commentary notes that that one bit cost them $10,000 (roughly 1.5% of the film's budget).
* Frank's parents sing "Happy Birthday" via a pre
* In the cult classic ''[[The Rocky Horror Picture Show]]'', the main cast sing "Happy Birthday" to Rocky, but are cut off by Frank N. Furter when the song is near completion.
** ...And then the audience usually finishes it for them: "Happy birthday, fuck you!"
* ''[[The Room]]''. They actually paid for the rights to the song.
* During Beaver's birthday on the ''[[Leave It to Beaver]]'' movie, as everyone sings "Happy Birthday," two of the kids briefly interrupt with "You smell like a wino."
* In the documentary ''[[
* In [[Rom Com]] ''[[
* ''[[Ladder 49]]'': Actually sung at Jack's daughter Katie's birthday party.
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''It isn't very long."'' }}
* A subplot in an episode of ''[[Sports Night]]'' involves Danny being fined for singing "Happy Birthday to You" on the air, and subsequently trying to find public-domain songs to sing to each of his co-workers. The episode, quoted at the top, also misidentifies the copyright holders.
* An episode of ''[[30
** In a later episode, however, [[Jennifer Aniston]]'s character does actually sing the song seductively in the style of [[Marilyn Monroe]].
* ''[[iCarly]]'' [[Lampshade Hanging|hangs a lampshade]] on it when the characters try to explain why they are in [[Sadist Teacher]] Mrs. Briggs' house.
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** In another episode, at Sam's birthday party, they begin to sing "Happy Birthday," only for Freddie to shout out "Not P.D.!" They switch to "For She's a Jolly Good Fellow."
* The TV show ''[[Lost in Space]]'' celebrated the birthday of one of the characters by doing a song that began "Today is Penny's birthday" done to the tune of "For (S)He's a Jolly Good Gellow."
* On ''[[Are You Being Served?
{{quote|Happy birthday to you, happy birthday to you
Happy birthday, dear ahh-ahhhhh... }}
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== [[Web Comics]] ==
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20130526105705/http://partiallyclips.com/2004/07/15/prisoner/ This] [[Partially Clips]] cartoon has fun with it.
== [[Web Original]] ==
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'''Mr. Burns:''' (singing à la [[Marilyn Monroe]]) Happy birthday, Mr. Smithers...
'''Smithers:''' Mmmmm... }}
** This troper recalls a ''Simpsons'' comic book issue when Homer and his pals became volunteer firefighters, and when they realized they couldn't do anything when a fair caught on fire, Ralph comes up with an idea to put out the fire, by ''singing the birthday song and blowing it out like birthday candles''. The whole cast begins to sing the song, but then the Blue-Haired Lawyer comes in warning them about the royalties of the song they'd need to pay to sing it before he passes out from the smoke. So Lisa writes up a new unique birthday song ("...pleasant birthday to that person, we're glad you're not dead!") and then they all blow on the fire, which ''actually extinguishes the blaze!''
* In ''[[The Venture Bros]].'', Dr. Girlfriend was going to surprise The Monarch wearing panties and a strategically placed bow (and boots and pillbox hat) singing "Happy Birthday" a la Marilyn Monroe to JFK, but instead sang "For He's a Sexy Good Fellow." In that stevedore voice of hers.
* An episode of ''[[Garfield and Friends]]'' gives us [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MPE_Vpd9lO8 this little number].
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* ''[[Home Movies]]'' has an episode at Fenton's birthday party, with a birthday song so annoying and asinine that it's an object lesson against copyrighting tunes like 'Happy Birthday'.
* In ''[[Adventure Time]]'', the party-goers at Finn's birthday party are only heard singing the last two words to the song.
* ''[[My Little Pony:
* ''[[South Park]]'': In a [[Christmas Episode]], the [[Jesus Christ|lonely birthday boy]] was singing "Happy Birthday to Me".
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* Chain restaurants like Applebee's, Bennigan's, and TGI Friday's usually make a fuss over customer birthdays, but the staff must sing an original corporate birthday song or chant because it is a "public performance"; if they were to sing "Happy Birthday" it would have to be licensed and paid for.
** Since, as previously mentioned, it's only the ''lyrics'' that are copyrighted, not the melody, this tends not to be the case at foreign-food places; for example, a certain Italian chain restaurant sings a Pavarotti-esque rendition of ''Happy Birthday'' in Italian.
** With the 2016 ruling in the United States, many of these places have switched back to "Happy Birthday" rather than waste the time previously spent teaching their waitstaff the old company birthday song.
* Until they got an incredible amount of flak, the rights holders to the song were threatening to sue the [[Boy Scouts]] and the [[Girl Scouts]] for use of the song (without, of course, having purchased a performing rights license) at campfires and scouting events. The bad publicity wasn't just loud, it was positively deafening, so much so that they agreed not to do so.
* Italian rock band Elio e le Storie Tese had the song "Al mercato di Bonn" removed from their 2003 album "Cicciput", because it was about the discovery that Beethoven wrote the melody for "Happy Birthday to You", and thus contained a sample of the song, lyrics and all. Luckily for the fans, they managed to "accidentally" broadcast the song during a popular radio show.
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