8YearOld Auditions for Video About Kazoos. 35 Years Later, the Viral Meme Has Been Viewed Over 90 Million Times (Exclusive) Meredith WilshereDecember 14, 2025 at 2:00 AM 0 Brett Ambler playing the kazoo. Brett Ambler starred in a toy advertisement in the late '80s, playing the kazoo "Wait a minute, who are you?" he said in the video, a quote that has followed him for the last three decades Ambler was 8 when he filmed the video, and now, at 45, talks to PEOPLE about how it still impacts him today One line launched then8yearold Brett Ambler into internet history when he turned to the camera and ...
- - 8-Year-Old Auditions for Video About Kazoos. 35 Years Later, the Viral Meme Has Been Viewed Over 90 Million Times (Exclusive)
Meredith WilshereDecember 14, 2025 at 2:00 AM
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Brett Ambler playing the kazoo. -
Brett Ambler starred in a toy advertisement in the late '80s, playing the kazoo
"Wait a minute, who are you?" he said in the video, a quote that has followed him for the last three decades
Ambler was 8 when he filmed the video, and now, at 45, talks to PEOPLE about how it still impacts him today
One line launched then-8-year-old Brett Ambler into internet history when he turned to the camera and asked, "Wait a minute, who are you?"
Ambler, now 45, was the star of 1989's Special Friends: Starring You On Kazoo video, a play-along where kids sang, danced, and, of course, played the kazoo.
Decades later, the clip has become a beloved internet meme, and now, Ambler catches up with PEOPLE to talk about how the video came to be and whether he still plays the kazoo.
It all began when Melissa and Doug Bernstein, founders of the Melissa & Doug toy company, decided to make educational and fun videos of kids using their different toys. Doug's father, Bob Bernstein, was the principal of Ambler's elementary school at the time, and word spread that the Bernsteins were seeking children to appear in their video. According to Ambler, "hundreds of kids" auditioned.
"They took us, hundreds of kids, and paired us down to about eight kids, and they decided, I guess, that I was just the weirdest of them all. I should be in charge of this," Ambler shares.
Brett Ambler singing the national anthem
"They cast eight of us," he continues. "We went into rehearsals, and they replaced seven of the eight. I was the only one who remained from the beginning to the end, and they repacked everybody else, I think in the whole video, as we went through rehearsals."
After a "little bit" of rehearsal, they shot the video over the course of "a couple of months, mostly on a working farm in Connecticut." However, the video didn't come out until 1989.
Aside from his now-iconic opening line, Ambler has several other quotable moments, such as "When I'm with friends, I like to have fun, fun, fun, fun, fun, fun, fun!" and "I like to sing, dance, pretend, and kazoo!"
At the time, only a few of Ambler's friends knew about the video, but he says it gained popularity online after a "bizarre little series of coincidences."
"One day, I happened to run into this little boy in a sandwich shop in Boulder, Colo., and he said his name, and I said, 'My name's Brett.' He said, "Oh, I know I kid named Brett.' Then he wandered off," Ambler recalls. "I said, 'Does he have a friend named Brett? It's not that common a name.' His mother said, 'No, he doesn't actually know anybody named Brett. He watches this video at home. It used to belong to his uncle, but now he watches it, and it's just this little kid named Brett, and it's a play-along video.' "
"I was like, 'He has a bowl cut, and he plays the kazoo?' She was like, 'Oh my gosh, yeah, do you know that video? I said, 'I know it really well, I starred in it. That's my video. That's me," Ambler adds of the interaction.
Amanda Tipton
Brett Ambler in a production of 'Frozen'
Ambler says it was "such a ridiculous coincidence" that he decided to post about it online, and the next day, one of his elementary school friends sent him the meme.
"I was like, 'Oh, did you make that? Because of the story that I posted? That's really funny,'" Ambler recalls. "He said, 'No, I just found this. Somebody made it. I just saw it, so I sent it to you.' The first time I ever saw the meme was the day after the first time I ever posted about being the meme online."
An edited video of the Special Friends episode titled "You On Kazoo" was posted to YouTube on August 25, 2014, and has garnered over 56 million views. Another YouTube video of the same clip has over 34 million views.
As the years went on, Ambler saw more and more memes about the video, and one day, he even saw his then-8-year-old face on BuzzFeed's homepage.
Ambler, who is still an actor and kazoo player, tells PEOPLE he is grateful that the work he did so many years ago has left a lasting impression.
"My profession is ageless as an actor. That work that I did is still entertaining people," he shares. "Obviously, there's a cringe and a camp factor to it that this kid is really overly excitable, and people are not like, 'Oh my gosh, what a tremendous actor.' But there's something about this little kid that's entertaining people, and the fact that the work I did when I was 8 years old is still entertaining people, absolutely delights me. I love it. I'm very grateful for it."
Over the years, Ambler has landed roles in Colorado productions of Frozen, Natasha, Pierre & The Great Comet of 1812, and Gutenberg, to name a few.
While he's never been recognized on the street as the kazoo kid, Ambler shares that when he joins a new cast for a production, there's always a chance another cast member will make the connection themselves.
"I usually have to explain every time I'm in a new cast, a bunch of new people find out about it, which is always super fun for me, because it's like, who doesn't want to be some weird celebrity?" he says.
Aside from internet celebrity status, Ambler says the gig also sparked his love for other instruments, and he now plays upright bass in a band called Banthom House.
Brett Ambler/Instagram
Brett Ambler the Kazoo Kid
Aside from bass and the kazoo, of course, he also plays drums, guitar, mandolin, flute, and a "little bit" of accordion and hand percussion.
"Weird Al says, he is not the best accordion player in the world, but he's probably the most famous accordion player in the whole world," he says. "I would posit that I may not be the best kazoo player in the whole world, but whether or not I'm the best kazoo player in the world, I might be the most famous player of the kazoo in the whole world. And that gives me great joy."
The actor and performer is still making people smile, and only occasionally do people ask him to say his line, "Wait a minute, who are you?"
To Ambler, he'll forever be "The Kazoo Kid" — and he's alright with that.
on People
Source: "AOL Entertainment"
Source: Entertainment
Published: December 14, 2025 at 12:36PM on Source: ANDY MAG
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