Oh Long Johnson

About

"Oh Long Johnson" is the phonetic translation of a noise produced by an aggravated cat in a clip from the reality television program America's Funniest Home Videos.

Origin

According to a post on the Healthy Pet Food Guide^[2], the original clip was featured on America's Funniest Home Video sometime in 1998. The clip first appeared online in a talking cat compilation video uploaded to YouTube on April 6th, 2006. On June 11th, YouTuber pkwvermittlung uploaded the isolated clip of the Oh Long Johnson cat in a video titled "Oh Long Johnson… – talking cat." As of March 30th, 2012, the original compilation video has received over 790,000 views and the isolated clip has received over 5,450,000 views.

"Oh my dog. Oh Long John. Oh Long Johnson. Oh Don Piano. Why I eyes ya. All the live long day."

Spread

On February 27th, 2007, an "Oh Don Piano" shirt design was submitted to the custom t-shirt website Threadless^[7] featuring a print of the Oh Long Johnson cat accompanied by the phrase "why I eyes ya" (shown below). On October 13th, an Urban Dictionary^[6] entry for "Don piano" was submitted by user Bengamoona, which defined the phrase as a "temporary lapse of consciousness."

On November 24th, the domain ohlongjohnson.com^[10] was registered for a site showcasing Oh Long Johnson merchandise from the online retailer Cafe Press. On March 21st, 2008, the video clip was posted on the Internet humor site FunnyJunk^[11], which received over 41,000 views in the next four years. On April 28th, 2009, YouTuber UltimateCoastersInc uploaded a video deconstructing the cat's noises in a satirical attempt to make sense of the phonetic translation.

On March 12th, 2010, a picture of Don Vito Carleone (played by Marlon Brando) from the 1972 crime film The Godfather edited with the Oh Long Johnson cat's head was submitted to the art sharing website deviantArt.^[12] On December 1st, 2011, the men's lifestyle blog Complex^[8] published an article titled "The 100 Best Viral Videos of the 2000s", which ranked the "Talking Cat: 'Oh Don Piano'" as #94 on the list. On January 12th, 2012, a definition for the phrase "Oh Long Johnson" was submitted to Urban Dictionary^[5] by user Sociopanda.

South Park Appearance

On March 28th, the animated television series South Park featured the cat in episode 1603 "Faith Hilling." In the episode, the cat is captured for starting the "Oh Long Johnsonning" meme, in which people put themselves in dangerous situations while saying "oh Long Johnson." The cat was later visited by the human ambassador in an attempt to prevent war between the two species.