"Gullah Gullah Island" ("Gullah Gullah" Children's Television Series Theme Song)

TheRybyFanClub, Aug 10, 2015

Let's all go to.. Gullah Gullah Island!

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Edited by Azizi Powell

This pancocojams post showcases a YouTube video of the introductorysong for the American children's television series Gullah Gullah.

This post also presents information about that television series as well as the lyrics for that song.

The content of this post is presented for historical, cultural, and entertainment purposes.

All copyrights remain wih their owners.

Thanks to all those who were associated with the Gullah Gullah television series. Thanks also to all those who are quoted in this post and thanks to the publisher of this video on YouTube.
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Click https://pancocojams.blogspot.com/2025/10/the-african-american-childrens-hide-go.html for a related pancocojams post entitled "The African American Children's Hide & Go Seek Chant "All Hid?" (with information about the Gullah Geechie culture)".

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INFORMATION ABOUT THE "GULLAH GULLAH" TELEVISION SERIES
ONLINE SOURCE #1
From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gullah_Gullah_Island
" "Gullah Gullah Island" is an American musical children's television series aired on the Nick Jr. block from October 24, 1994, to March 7, 2000.[3] The show was hosted by Ron Daise, the former vice president for Creative Education at Brookgreen Gardens in Murrells Inlet, South Carolina until 2023, and his wife Natalie Daise (née Eldridge), both of whom also served as cultural advisors, and were inspired by the Gullah culture of Ron Daise's home of St. Helena Island, South Carolina, part of the Sea Islands."...

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ONLINE SOURCE #2
From https://www.theguardian.com/news/2024/dec/23/gullah-gullah-island-geechee-tv-show "Let’s all go to Gullah Gullah Island!’: the groundbreaking TV show that affirmed Black kids"

The Nick Jr series encouraged cultural preservation of the Gullah Geechee, descendants of formerly enslaved people in South Carolina

Adria R Walker,  23 Dec 2024
"Thirty years ago, Ron and Natalie Daise and their children, Sara and Simeon, beckoned TV viewers: “Come and let’s play together in the bright sunny weather. Let’s all go to Gullah Gullah Island!”

The theme song marked the beginning of every episode of Gullah Gullah Island, a musical children’s television show, based upon an idealized version of the Daise family, that ran on Nick Jr for five seasons from 1994 to 2000. As the family sang in the introduction scene, images of curious hogs, frolicking children, Binyah Binyah – a large, yellow anthropomorphic polliwog who served as the family’s playful companion – and other characters danced across the screen.

The show, heralded for its depiction of a Black, specifically Gullah Geechee, family won multiple accolades including several NAACP Image awards, an Emmy and a Parents’ Choice award. But its impact was most felt by the children who grew up being transported to the magical Gullah Gullah Island, a fictional re-imagining of Saint Helena Island, South Carolina, one of the major islands in the Gullah Geechee corridor. The show was one of a kind in its teachings, encouraging tolerance and cultural preservation in the process.

The Gullah Geechee people are the descendants of Africans who were enslaved on the Sea Island cotton plantations along the south-eastern coast of the US, spanning from North Carolina to Florida. Though their labor has been largely obfuscated, the Gullah Geechee are inextricably linked to the foundation and wealth of the US, as they cultivated and harvested the rice, cotton and indigo that made the region and country wealthy.

Because the plantations on which the Gullah Geechee were enslaved were isolated from the rest of the country, the Gullah Geechee were able to create and maintain a distinct culture, including an English-based creole language that their descendants still speak today.

Presented by Ron and Natalie, the Gullah Gullah Island series was not an anthropological or documentary presentation of Gullah Geechee culture at large. Instead, it shone a light on one specific Gullah Geechee family living and learning in their community. In one episode, for example, Natalie goes to the Charleston market to sell her dolls, which are adorned in vibrant dresses and matching gele, a west African headdress, and to buy sweetgrass baskets, a Gullah Geechee craft.

As in other children’s shows, Gullah Gullah Island also taught standard educational skills like counting. In the Charleston market episode, for instance, the characters James and Marisol count quarters in a song about what the family will buy at the market. But it mainly gave children an early entry point into learning more about Gullah heritage and history. Binyah Binyah, for example, may have been some viewers’ first Gullah phrase. Binyah, or “been here”, means someone who is native to a place.

In the decades since the show’s first airing, Ron and Natalie said, young adults of all races and backgrounds have reached out to them, telling them about how pivotal the show was in their lives. Some older adults have told the family that they were able to experience a second childhood through the series. Others have stopped Natalie and Ron in airports to tell them that they would skip classes as college students to watch Gullah Gullah Island.

“Whatever careers, professions or mindsets that they have now in their adult lives were formed by their viewing us or people who looked like us who looked like themselves, and have shaped and guided them,” Ron said. Natalie echoed this sentiment: “There were millions of people to whom we were Auntie Natalie and Uncle Ron, or that virtual parent. … And it’s been really affirming, this large community of people reaching out to us and saying: ‘Wow, I was three, I was four, I was five – and you were my mama, you were my uncle.’”...

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LYRICS - GULLAH GULLAH ISLAND [TELEVISION SERIES] THEME SONG
(composed by Peter Lurye)

Gullah, Gullah

Come and let's play together

In the bright sunny weather

Let's all go to Gullah, Gullah Island

Gullah, Gullah

Gullah, Gullah

 

Lots to see and to do there

All we need now is you there

Let's all go to Gullah, Gullah Island

Gullah, Gullah

 

Just put your foot in your hand

That means hurry up

Don't miss the good things that we've planned

 

So come and let's play together

In the bright sunny weather

Let's all go to Gullah, Gullah Island

Gullah, Gullah Island

Gullah, Gullah Island

Source- https://genius.com/Gullah-gullah-island-gullah-gullah-island-theme-lyrics

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