For more than seventy years now, filmmakers have been using and reusing a particular scream. Without a doubt, this is Hollywood’s most famous sound effect. Many people even know it by name. But despite how widely-known this sound is, lots of people still don’t know its surprising origin story. To set the record straight, we’ve remixed one of our classic, early episodes. Featuring Steve Lee, sound designer, film historian, and creator of the Hollywood Sound Museum.

Follow Dallas on Instagram, TikTok, YouTube and LinkedIn.

Join our community on Reddit and follow us on Facebook.

Sign up for Twenty Thousand Hertz+ to get our entire catalog ad-free.

If you know what this week's mystery sound is, tell us at mystery.20k.org

Download BandLab for free at bandlab.com/download.

Get 15% off an annual MasterClass subscription at masterclass.com/20k.

Get 20% off everything at liquidiv.com by using promo code 20k at checkout.

Support us by supporting our sponsors at 20k.org/sponsors.

Episode transcript, music, and credits can be found here: https://www.20k.org/episodes/wilhelmscreamix

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices