What's New Pussycat?

About

"What's New Pussycat?" is a song written by Burt Bacharach and Hal David and sung by Welsh vocalist Tom Jones. It became notable online following a stand-up comedy routine by John Mulaney that centered around playing the song in a diner.

Origin

"What's New Pussycat?" was written for the film of the same name and released on June 5th, 1965.^[1] It was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Original Song in 1966, but lost to "The Shadow of Your Smile." It peaked at Number 3 on the US Charts, marking Jones' second entry into the Top 40.

Spread

John Mulaney Standup Routine

The song became most notable online following the release of a popular stand-up comedy routine by John Mulaney called "The Salt and Pepper Diner." In the routine, Mulaney tells a story about how he and his friend selected the song to play over and over in a jukebox at a diner. The song plays several times, much to the chagrin of the diner's patrons. As part of their prank, the pair selected another Tom Jones hit, "It's Not Unusual," to play after several runs of "What's New Pussycat?" This was a major relief for the customers, until "What's New Pussycat" began playing again. The routine was included in Mulaney's album The Top Part, released March 24th, 2009 on iTunes.^[2]

On February 3rd, 2013, Tumblr account timetoputonashow,^[3] since deactivated, uploaded a video of Mulaney performing the routine, gaining over 750,000 notes. This is credited by memearchives as likely being the post that popularized the routine on the site. In the following years, homages to and jokes about the routine spread through Tumblr, as the song acquired an ironic fandom. On May 9th, 2015, user mrfrustrum uploaded an edit of the audio where the "Whoa" of the song is stretched out, gaining over 108,000 notes (shown below).

Others made homages to the joke by recreating the playlist in Mulaney's routine on various media players (examples shown below). In late May of 2017, Tumblr user Kleinsens^[4] referenced the routine in a text post that read "what’s new pussycat just started playing in this restaurant and every millenial in the room shared a knowing, fearful look" and gained over 84,000 notes.

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References