About

I Am the Very Model of a Modern Major-General is a musical number from 1879 Gilbert and Sullivan opera The Pirates of Penzance. The song has been received several fan tributes and parodies both online and in popular media.

Origin

The song first appeared in the comedy opera The Pirates of Penzance,^[1] which first premiered on December 31st, 1879, in New York City.^[2] The earliest posting of the song online (shown below) was to YouTube on January 17th, 2009, where it received over 3.8 million views in over fifteen years.

Spread

The song has been widely parodied in popular media. For example, it was sung by an asparagus in the 2003 Veggie Tales short, "The Wonderful World of Auto-tainment"^[3] (shown below, left). It was parodied in the Animaniacs reboot episode "Rome Sweet Rome"^[4] on November 5th, 2021 (shown below, right).

It also has been parodied in multiple YouTube skits. For example, on May 4th, 2017, Cyanide and Happiness released a video featuring a doctor singing a patient's lab results to the tune, gaining over 9.1 million views in seven years^[5] (shown below, left). On November 15th, 2019, YouTuber ScottFalco posted a parody of the song about the decline of the Pokémon franchise, gaining over 325,000 views in five years^[6] (shown below, right).

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References