Day O comes from The Banana Boat Song, a Jamaican folk song popularised by Harry Belafonte in 1956. It became a pop culture staple after the 1988 Tim Burton film Beetlejuice, where ghosts force the dinner guests to sing and dance it against their will. The contrast between the cheerful song and the characters' confused expressions made the sequence one of the film's most quoted scenes. Clips and audio from the moment still circulate online for dance edits, Halloween posts and nostalgic movie references.