Oh, God – that stupid birthday song. Do they still even do that any more? For the sake of anyone working there today I sincerely hope not.
Nothing was more degrading than having to round up your fellow depressed waiters and beg them to help you sing a lame song to some lame customers that 90% of the time just want the free cake and don’t even really have a birthday. They knew it. We knew it. But, we did it anyway, God help us.
The first place I really remember them singing you a birthday song was the Farrel’s Ice Cream when I was a kid. They’d bring out some ginormous ice cream confection with a bunch of sparklers all over it and sing you a silly song for your birthday. Frankly, it used to scare the hell out of me when I was small. I was terrified of sparklers for the longest time and having one in my face for 5 minutes wasn’t exactly my cup of tea. This probably has something to do with why I don’t like ice cream.
Then in the 80s when I was in college, they started doing the group birthday song at Bennigan’s. This was way back when Bennigan’s was hip and cool, so other chains began to follow suit. I guess the geniuses at Olive Garden Corporate Headquarters must have thought that no chain restaurant would be complete without the requisite birthday song. So, they put their Marketing Genius Hats on and came up with this ditty:
THE OLIVE GARDEN BIRTHDAY SONG
(Sing while clapping loudly with group of degraded waiters and acting excited or else.)
From the pasta we make
To lasagna we bake
Ba ba ba ba
We’re wising you a happy birthday!We hope you will remember
This fond event forever
We’re wishing you a happy birthday!It’s like family and friends
At the Olive Garden
In the true Italiano way
Hey! Hey!So if youre looking for some fun
Try Hospitaliano
Have a happy happy day
Hey!
Yeah – it really doesn’t make much sense, does it? Unfortunately, it’s seared into my brain like my address or phone number. I must have sang this 200 times while I worked there. Now, I am sure that the song they sing today at the Olive Garden is probably different from this one. Someone at Corporate must have noticed how lame this song is by now, right?
6 responses so far ↓
dogisgodspelledbackwards // November 29, 2007 at 4:52 pm |
You were really deeply scarred by your little stint at OG weren’t you? Personally, I’d rather have a depressed waiter than a smart-ass, smarmy or perky one with 14+ pieces of flair.
We found some mex food hole in the wall place with killer margaritas, and their b’day song goes like this:
“hoppy birth-day to you, cha cha cha
hoppy birth-day to you.
hoppy birth-day Conchita, hoppy birth-day to you.”
I always found it rather catchy and uplifting, but it may have been the margaritas talking.
Mallory // January 9, 2008 at 10:35 pm |
I work at the Olive Garden currently, so I thought I would update you on the requisite “celebration song.” It’s to the tune of one of those insanely common “italian songs” though I don’t know the actual name of it.
“Buena Festa, what a joyous day
Life’s good fortune is sure to come your way.
So come sit back and just relax
We’ll fill your plate the italian way
We’re so glad you came to celebrate with us today
HEY!”
The new version seems shorter, but I assure you it still sucks. YAy for hospitaliano
Tiff // January 9, 2008 at 11:01 pm |
Thanks for the update Mallory. It’s so sad to hear that they still make you do this. I wonder how much the consulting fee was to change this from the old one.
Stay strong, fellow OG worker.
Book Your Birthday at Indianapolis' Red Robin // January 13, 2009 at 7:04 pm |
[...] just to see the steam build up behind my eyeballs when they came over to clap and sing that lame advertisement they wrote to get out of a potential copyright jackpot with Happy [...]
Katai // June 26, 2009 at 11:55 am |
Hahaha. They Have a different one now. The Bona Fresco Song or something or other.
no1ofanyimportance // August 19, 2009 at 4:31 pm |
Next time you feel stuck in a time warp … and tettering, not twittering …on bordom, check out “Starter for 10″ and bring back some of the other memories! (ugh!) May help.
Just a suggeztion!