Wilhelm scream
A possible recording is known, but ViralWorld has not verified that it is the right one.
1951
One recorded scream, reused as an in-joke by sound editors in more than four hundred films.
At a glanceThe facts
- Spread in
- 1951
- Format
- Sound
- Taken from
- First used in the 1951 film Distant Drums
- Performed by
- Probably Sheb Wooley; nobody has been definitively identified
- Original title
- Named after Private Wilhelm, a character who screams it in a 1953 film
- Origin
- No single original
- Available
- Not held by ViralWorld
What this wasThe story
A stock scream recorded in 1951 and slipped into hundreds of films by sound editors as an in-joke. The internet turned a private industry joke into a public game of spotting it, and it is now impossible to unhear.
TimelineIn order
- Made
The scream is recorded for Distant Drums.1
- Later
It is used for a character called Wilhelm in The Charge at Feather River.1
- Came back
The sound designer Ben Burtt, having found the recording in a studio archive, puts it in Star Wars.1
What people misrememberSet straight
Commonly remembered asIt was made for Star Wars.
ActuallyIt was twenty-six years old by then.1
Why it is here: something the internet still knows by name · it got out of its own corner of the internet fast
Where it came fromWhat we know
This spread through many posts rather than one identifiable original. The example shown is one surviving copy and is not claimed as the first.
Nothing here is claimed to be the first version of this. It spread through many posts rather than from one identifiable original.
Not established. This index only names a creator where the evidence supports it.
SourcesWhat was read
Sources last read on . That date is about the history on this page. Whether the media still plays is checked separately and can change any day. How ViralWorld documents things