Pin Pon

This is a gentle lesson in disguise. Pin Pon is a handsome little doll made of cardboard, and the whole song follows him through the small routines of looking after himself — washing his face with soap and water, combing his hair, going to bed on time. By watching the cheerful doll do these things, small children are coaxed into doing them too, which is why nursery teachers across the Spanish-speaking world have leaned on it for generations.

The song’s origin is unknown, but its fame has a clear source: a Chilean television character. From 1968 to 1971 the actor Jorge Guerra played a doll named Pin Pon on Canal 13’s children’s programming, and the show carried the song to audiences all over Latin America. Guerra himself was clear that he did not write it: the song “belongs to universal heritage; nobody knows its author”, he said — a kindergarten teacher had told him she already sang a song about a doll called José Pin Pon, and he took it over, changing only the melody of the second verse and turning the cardboard doll into a cotton one for television. Because no retrieved source names a country where the song began, this page leaves its country unknown rather than guessing from the language. What endures is the simplest of ideas — a friendly doll who keeps himself clean, and a tune catchy enough that children want to be just like him.