Dan Da Dan Fans Have Discovered the Real Song Behind the ‘Pikmin Noises’ in Its Catchy Opening

One of the best parts about tuning into Dan Da Dan every Thursday—aside from its wacky action sci-fi romance premise—is grooving out to the catchy theme song by renowned hip-hop duo Creepy Nuts. Since the anime’s premiere in October, “Otonoke” has skyrocketed to the top of the music charts and has become the ear worm of every anime fan. Fans in the West have also churned out memes joking about Nintendo’s Pikmin being an uncredited feature. That is until one attentive listener dissected the catchy anime opening’s high pitch vocals and claims to have discovered that the sample wasn’t from Nintendo’s colorful little dudes, but an even weirder source.

Over the weekend, user DankidyDan uploaded a video on the Dandadan subreddit claiming to have found the vocal sample Creepy Nuts used in “Otonoke.” Rather than simply lifting the high-pitched mumbo jumbo from a Pikmin sound file, DankidyDan asserts that Creepy Nuts chopped and sped up the vocal track from Billy Murray’s 1915 folk song, “I’ve Been Floating Down the Old Green River.” In what can only be described as the common man’s TikTok Dissect video, DankidyDan broke down how Creepy Nuts might have gone about sonically  engineering Murray’s vocal track into “Otonoke.”

The user "DankidyDan" on DDD Reddit, found the origin of the samples for the "Pikmin" sounds used in the opening

this is just insane pic.twitter.com/okiDXhwxri

— Ayase 💞 (@MomoAyasee) November 2, 2024

To further support DankidyDan’s claim, the popular online music encyclopedia Genius credits the Philadelphia-born artist as a sample used in the anime theme. Musicians sampling from a previous generation’s sound (or earlier, in this case) is a pretty common practice—especially between Japan and the U.S. For example, one of rapper Tyler, the Creator’s most recent samples (from his Chromakopia song “Balloon”) is the instrumental from ’70s Japanese pop star Akiko Yano’s “To Ki Me Ki.”

While “Otonoke”‘s sampling of Murray is as bizarre as it being lifted from Pikmin audio files, there’s a thin line of logic as to why Creepy Nuts sampled his song.

Upon further inspection, Murray’s music in a Science Saru anime makes sense, considering the studio’s animated logo features a Betty Boop-looking dog (thing?) whistling while it struts. Coincidentally, Murray lent his vocal talents as the first voice actor for Betty Boop’s love interest, Bimbo. Seeing how I made this loose connection between Murray and Science Saru’s throwback logo vibes from a cursory Wikipedia dive, there’s a non-0 % chance Creepy Nuts made a similar association after being contacted to create an opening for the Dan Da Dan. Thankfully, their musical ingenuity led to the duo completing a hat trick of catchy anime theme songs in their discography.

btw the entire beginning of the dandadan opening with the cut-outs is one big ultraman opening reference

momo even turns into ultraman for a frame as her green earrings tilt up https://t.co/CvMR8APWc5 pic.twitter.com/X5Z6uRPARa

— TAHK0 ☕️ (@TAHK0) October 3, 2024

Dan Dan Dan’s meme-focused Pikmin investigation is the most recent in a series of scrutinizing from the anime community diligently examining every frame of its opening sequence. Other notable findings include the anime’s stylish silhouettes paying homage to the Ultraman opening and its character’s dance moves being equal parts overt and subtle references to The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air‘s Carlton dance and Rihanna’s shimmy in her “Where Have You Been” music video.

Momo and Rihanna's dance side by side pic.twitter.com/t5ZwQjnFaq

— 𝙈𝙧𝙕𝙚𝙙💫 (@spinitbackzed) October 23, 2024

Time will tell if upcoming episodes from Dan Da Dan will lead to more references, be they musical or artistic, to famous or obscure artists, cryptids, or oddities far beyond our atmosphere. Should anything of note arise, we’ll be the first to break down what could be the anime of the year’s next phenomenon to exhausting detail. Until then, we’ll be listening to “Otonoke” on repeat.

Want more io9 news? Check out when to expect the latest Marvel, Star Wars, and Star Trek releases, what’s next for the DC Universe on film and TV, and everything you need to know about the future of Doctor Who.