People can't agree on what comes after 'Jingle bells, Batman smells...'

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By VT

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It seems that yet another cultural phenomenon is dividing the world. Don't worry - it's not another one of those "Is it white and gold or blue and black?" debates. This one has actually been around for decades - and yet we're only now discovering it.

It all revolves around that children's rhyme 'Jingle Bells, Batman Smells'. Pretty much every kid raised in an English-speaking country will have been exposed to the nostalgic schoolyard tune at some point in their childhood.

But here's something you may not have known - 'Jingle bells, Batman smells' has countless variants and the version you grew up with may be different from the version just half a generation before.

In fact, even kids from your own generation may have a different spin on the classic song - depending on where and when they grew up.

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Credit: Picography / Pexels

Wanting to pinpoint which versions people are likely to know based on a few simple facts about their background, one YouTuber from the UK set up a poll to note the differences. And it seems that people seriously cannot agree on what comes after "Jingle bells, Batman smells".

Check out the video he made on the results of the poll:

The YouTuber, Tom Scott explains that when he was a kid, the line that followed was "Robin flew away" - in fact, that was the only other line in the entire song!

An impressive 64,182 took part in Scott's poll and their answers demonstrate just how much confusion there is over the ending to the short song.

While Scott's hometown sang the "Robin flew away" version, a competing variant including the words "Robin laid an egg" instead of the former. He believes that British kids would have all favored the version he knew until one fateful episode of The Simpsons aired in 1993.

Check out The Simpons' version here:

Singer and actor Robert Goulet sang this version on the Simpsons in December 1993: "Jingle bells, Batman smells, Robin laid an egg, Batmobile lost its wheel And the Joker got away" - and Scott believes this episode is responsible for popularizing this newer, alternative version in the UK.

"Two different bird jokes," he said. "And here’s the hypothesis that I want to test: that the Simpsons measurably changed which version of that song was popular.

"That kids who saw that episode, either when it first aired or in reruns, either learned it for the first time from there, or it replaced the version they knew."

Overall, 78% of the participants stated that their version included "laid an egg" whereas 17% declared that the one that they grew up with contained the words "flew away". Just 5% included neither of these phrases in the version that they knew.

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Credit: Pixabay / Pexels

When Scott broke down the results by country, he found that more than 98% of Americans favored the "laid an egg" version whereas the "flew away" was favored in the UK - until the 90s kids learned the American version.

While these were the two main versions, there were some pretty bizarre, lesser-known variants including one known predominantly in Australia which ended: "...Santa Claus got a .44 and shot him in the head. Barbie dolls, barbie dolls tried to save his life. Teddy bear, Teddy bear stabbed him with a knife."

Over 2,000 people who took part in the poll knew some variation of the song which included the word "motorway". The most popular "motorway" variation goes: "...Robin flew away, Uncle Billy lost his willy on the motorway."

All in all, though, Scott's results confirmed that "Robin flew away" had long been the British variant of the song, with The Simpsons having had a massive influence on 90s kids and their preference for the American version.

Featured image credit: Ronê Ferreira / Pexels