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From WinkyPedia, the free encyclopedia that tells you what you already knew
The Wilhelm scream is a stock sound effect of a man screaming. It was recorded in 1951 for the western Distant Drums and has since been reused in hundreds of films, television shows and video games.[1] It is named after Private Wilhelm, a minor character in the 1953 western The Charge at Feather River, who lets out the scream in one scene. The scream is therefore named after a character who borrowed it, rather than the film it was recorded for, which is how most fame works.
The scream sat in a film studio's sound library and was used in a number of films in the 1950s and 1960s. In the 1970s a young sound designer came across it, named it after Private Wilhelm and began slipping it into films he worked on as a private joke. Other sound editors noticed and joined in, and including the scream became a tradition.[2] It now turns up in films of almost every kind.
The voice is widely believed to belong to the actor and singer Sheb Wooley, who recorded several screams in a single session for Distant Drums. One of the screams went on to have a longer career than most actors.
Film fans compete to spot the Wilhelm scream, which is short and very distinctive, with a sharp rise and a sudden drop. Once someone has heard about it, they tend to hear it everywhere, and cannot stop. It is the only sound effect with fans, a name and a fan club, and it has never once been asked to keep it down.