Use in Popular Culture
The Three Blind Mice is a street gang from Baton Rogue, LA.
The Three Blind Mice are guests of Old King Cole in the 1933 Disney cartoon of the same name.
A jazzy "Three Blind Mice" tune is used in the introduction of The Three Stooges short subjects, produced by Columbia Pictures from 1939 through 1959.
The 1962 James Bond film Dr. No features a calypso version of "Three Blind Mice" with new lyrics, in reference to three villainous characters in the film.
In 1977, legendary funk group Parliament sampled "Three Blind Mice" for the song "Sir Nose D'Voidoffunk" on their platinum-selling 1977 album Funkentelechy Vs. the Placebo Syndrome. Producer George Clinton arranged the lyrics to say Three blind mice, see how they run. They all ran after the farmer's wife, turned on the fun with the water pipe, have you ever seen such a sight in your life? Those three blind mice. The lyrics were making a reference to the use of marijuana smoked from a bong. The song was written by Clinton, virtuoso bassist Bootsy Collins and virtuoso keyboardist Bernie Worrell. The song was heavily sampled in Hip-Hop music. The most known sample being singer Aaliyah's 2000 single "Come Back in One Piece."
In several sports (basketball and hockey, for example, which have three referees), "Three Blind Mice" is used as a derogatory phrase for poor referees. Bands also play the song to mock referees in similar cases. Such references, however, are frowned upon officially by both sports as unsportsmanlike. Before Major League Baseball required four umpires at every game, there were regularly three. The Brooklyn Dodgers had a fan band called the "Sym-Phoney Band", led by Shorty Laurice, which started playing "Three Blind Mice" when the umpires came out onto the field until the league office ordered the team to stop. In 1985, Wilbur Snapp, the organist for the baseball Clearwater Phillies, was thrown out of the game for playing "Three Blind Mice" after what he considered a bad call. On August 1, 2012, during a Daytona Cubs - Fort Myers Miracle minor-league baseball game, umpire Mario Seneca tossed the public address announcer Derek Dye for playing the song "Three Blind Mice" after a disputed call at first base.
The VIC-20 and Commodore 64 computer game Radar Rat Race from 1981 used a fast-paced, out of tune version of the song as background theme, which cycles endlessly.
Reggae artist Max Romeo has covered the rhyme. Canadian rock trio Rush often played "Three Blind Mice" as an intro to their own songs in concert, notably during their "Hold Your Fire" tour of 1987–1988.
The nursery rhyme plays significantly into the plot of Agatha Christie's short story of the same name as well as The Mousetrap, the stage play based upon it.
The Three Blind Mice are minor characters in the Shrek films, alongside other popular fairy tale and nursery rhyme characters.
Belgian rock band dEUS featured a snippet of Three Blind Mice in the song Secret Hell from their first album.
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