About

The Forbidden Music refers to a memorable scene from The Simpsons TV Series in which the Springfield Elementary School Band plays "Pop Goes the Weasel," referring to it as "the forbidden music." In August 2019, edits in which the composition is replaced with other songs gained popularity on YouTube.

Origin

On April 16th, 1995, episode 21 "The PTA Disbands" of the animated series The Simpsons premiered in the United States.^[1] In one scene of the episode, the Springfield Elementary School Band decides to play "the forbidden music" in the absence of the music teacher Mr. Largo. The band then stop playing "God Save the Queen" and proceeds to play "Pop Goes the Weasel."

- Hey, now that Largo's gone, we can play the forbidden music.
- I heard that!

Spread

On August 27th, 2019, YouTube user SudanMan posted an edited version of the video in which "Pop Goes the Weasel" had been replaced with "Dream Land" by Hirokazu Ando from Super Smash Bros. ^[2] The video received over 31,700 views in two days, with August 28th, 2019, post to /r/youtubehaiku subreddit gaining over 4,800 upvotes in one day.^[3]

In the following days, edits in which other songs have been used were posted by YouTube users,^[4] with links also submitted to /r/youtubehaiku subreddit.^[5]

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References