I Scream, You Scream, But Wilhelm Really Screams

nHumanities is not revealing any trade secrets when it confesses that professors sometimes scream when they get student papers. Nor should it surprise anyone to learn that students sometimes scream when they receive those same papers back from their professors.

All of this screaming, however, can lead to enduring fame. Consider the case of Sheb Wooley, a voice actor who recorded a scream for the film Distant Drums in 1951 to accompany a man being eaten by an alligator. His scream has lived on for over 50 years and has been immortalized among sound editors as the Wilhelm Scream, named after "Pvt. Wilhelm," a character who emits the same scream in The Charge at Feather River (1953).

As a humorous homage, sound editors have used the Wilhelm Scream over and over again. You can hear it in the following Wilhelm Scream Compilation from YouTube:

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Another wonderful movie vocalization is the controversial Tarzan yell used in Johnny Weissmuller movies. While some folks claim sound editors created the yell by combining a number of clips, Weissmuller explained the yell was entirely his and had its roots in the yodeling of his Vienna youth.