The Wilhelm scream was first recorded for the 1951 western Distant Drums and got its name from a character named Wilhelm in the 1953 film The Charge at Feather River. Sound designer Ben Burtt revived it for Star Wars in the late 1970s, slipping it into the films alongside effects like the Darth Vader scream, which turned it into an industry in-joke. It has since appeared in hundreds of movies, cartoons and games, and now thrives in fail compilations and edits where the familiar yell signals instant comic disaster.