About

"That's Amore" is a song popularized by mid-20th century crooner Dean Martin. It's first lyric, "When the moon hits your eye like a big pizza pie, that's amore," has been parodied online through several snowclone jokes and image macros.

Origin

"That's Amore" was written by Harry Warren and Jack Brooks and popularized by singer Dean Martin in 1953.^[1] It first appeared on the soundtrack for the Martin and Jerry Lewis comedy film The Caddy, released August 10th, 1953. The song was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Original Song that year.

Spread

Several snowclones and puns using the lyrics appeared in Spider Callahan's 1993 book, The Callahan Touch.^[2] Some were collected by NTU.edu^[4] in 2007 (shown below, left). Online, puns and references to the song date back to 1999. Mudcat Café^[3] has archived a discussion of a snowclone with the song that makes the punchline "that's a moray," as in a moray eel.

The "Moray" joke became the subject of several Bad Joke Eel image macros in the early 2010s (examples shown below).

The joke has also inspired video parodies wherein people alter the lyrics of the tune. One of the most popular examples, titled "That's a moron," was posted July 31st, 2013 by Al Mahan and gained over 2 million views (shown below, left). YouTuber Hank Land published a parody titled "That's a Mori" using the game Dead By Daylight in 2017, gaining over 162,000 views (shown below, right).

Many parodies have appeared in Reddit threads dealing with a particular subject. For example, a post in /r/the_donald gained over 6,000 points (shown below, left). A Starter Pack meme posted to /r/starterpacks gained over 5,800 points (shown below, right).

In 2018, the song began seeing use in object labeling memes. Some popular examples include an edit from The Simpsons (shown below, left) and an edit from It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia.

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References