Songfacts®:

• Penned by The Banana Splits Adventure Hour musical director Mark Barkan and his songwriting partner Ritchie Adams, this sing-along tune was used as the theme song for the trippy children's television program. Mark Barkan's other songwriting credits include Lesley Gore's "She's A Fool" and Manfred Mann's "Pretty Flamingo." After he teamed up with Ritchie Adams, the pair co-wrote songs for The Archies and The Monkees in the late 1960s.
• Originally released in 1968 by Decca Records on the album titled We're the Banana Splits, the single release peaked at #96 on the Billboard Hot 100 on February 8, 1969.
• American punk rock band The Dickies made the song a hit in the United Kingdom in 1979 with their cover version. Marketed by their label as "Banana Splits (Tra La La Song)," it reached #7 in the UK Singles Chart.
  
  Their version was later used in the 2010 film Kick-Ass.
• It has been widely observed that the music for the bridge of the 1983 Bob Marley song, "Buffalo Soldier" sounds very much like the chorus of this song. There has never been any litigation connected to the similarity.
• Liz Phair and Material Issue covered this for the 1995 tribute album Saturday Morning: Cartoons' Greatest Hits.
• My Chemical Romance cited this as an influence for their 2010 single "Na Na Na (Na Na Na Na Na Na Na Na Na)." Their vocalist Gerard Way told The Sun: "'Na Na Na' is like the Ramones with the 'Death Defying' intro borrowed from The Banana Splits. It's intentionally dumb. It's all about having a good time and not being trapped by a fashion or genre."
• Want some banana fun facts?
  
  Early 15th century Portuguese explorers discovered bananas in Western Africa and took them to the Canary Islands. The word "banana" is the native word for the fruit in Guinea.
  
  North Americans got their first taste of bananas at the 1876 U.S. Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia. Each banana was wrapped in foil and sold for 10 cents.
  
  The banana plant is the world's largest herb and closely related to vanilla and ginger.
  
  Humans share 50% of their DNA with bananas.
  
  Americans eat more bananas than any other fruit: a total of 11 billion a year.
  
  (Source of facts The Encyclopedia of Trivia).