An Oral History of Big Mouth Billy Bass
How the famous singing fish swam to the heights of fame, before being flushed down the drain of the pop culture commode.
MEL Magazine 
“Surprise your friends with this rare catch!” exclaimed the product description for the now legendary Big Mouth Billy Bass novelty product, which debuted 20 years ago, early in the year 2000, at an Atlanta gift convention.“This realistically-detailed Large Mouth Billy Bass looks ordinary enough. But when he senses an unsuspecting admirer, he flaps his tail and sings them a song!”
Two decades later, it’s truly hard to imagine anyone ever “surprising their friends” with such a kitschy product, or anyone ever thinking a Big Mouth Billy Bass would be a good gift. After all, Billy has spent the last 19 of his 20 years as a tired joke — a novelty relic that invites as much derision as nostalgia.
But for a short time there — a few months, at least — Big Mouth Billy Bass truly was an awe-inspiring product. Billy was such a massive success that it was estimated to have made over$100 millionin that first year alone, and it found its way into the homes of the world’s most famous and important people. It also appeared in movies likeWALL-E
and some of the biggest TV shows of all time, ensuring that Big Mouth Billy Bass would never truly be forgotten.
But Billy’s origins were about as humble as any fish’s could be — thought up outside a Bass Pro Shop in Grapevine, Texas, in 1998.The Spawning of Big Mouth Billy Bass
While Bass Pro Shops are known as a resource for catching and killing fish, the retail chain is also partially responsible for the birth of the most famous bass of all time.
Joe Pellettieri, inventor of Big Mouth Billy Bass: I guess I’m known for Big Mouth Billy Bass, but I always tell people that I’m not a one-hit wonder. I’ve had a lot of hits that you may or may not be familiar with over the years in toys, Halloween, Christmas and a lot of different categories. Do you remember
, the ones that did “Kung Fu Fighting” and a bunch of different songs? That was me.
I work for a company called Occasions now, and they do a lot of holiday inflatables that I’ve worked on too. My start, though, was with the Dancing Flowers — those were my first hit with Gemmy, a novelty seasonal company where I was in product development. After the flowers, I did Big Mouth Billy Bass for them, so I started out with a bang, really — I guess I got lucky.
Until late 1997 I was in retail, and in the beginning of 1998, I’d taken a job in Washington, D.C. I was going to work for Ron Ziegler, who before that was
President Nixon’s press secretary. I took the job, but I called Gemmy — who I interviewed with earlier — and I said, “Look, I’d kind of rather make toys, so if you want to make me an offer, now is the time.” So they made me an offer, and I’ve been making toys and seasonal products ever since. I would have been wearing a suit and a white shirt and been a bureaucrat, or I could make toys for a living. I chose well.