“The Fisher-Price Kick and Play ‘purple monkey’ mat was sent as an unsolicited gift from a relative,” Dan, a fellow parent at my company tells me over Slack. “It appeared on my doorstep without any indication of its intentions to permanently overwrite sections of my memory. Sort of like when those kids first find Jumanji and don’t realize the game has its own motives.”
Sounds like the beginning of a horror movie, but IYKYK. You’re likely here reading this because you saw the photo and immediately felt a sense of nostalgia, joy, or dread—or some mix of all three—as a soft ratatat and the lyrics, “Maybe you could be a purple monkey in a bubblegum tree….” filled your head. If you found yourself here for other reasons, allow me to introduce you:
Officially known as the Fisher-Price Kick & Play Piano Gym, the baby activity mat has gone viral among parents of newborns for being as ubiquitous as it is beloved with the “tummy time” set. The machine-washable mat comes with several toys, from a self-discovery mirror to a round crinkle pad, and a removable piano with a prerecorded playlist of catchy tunes that includes the absolute banger, “Maybe” (a.k.a. the purple monkey song).
The earworm has garnered over 1.2 million plays on Spotify, a cover by John Legend, and hundreds upon hundreds of feverish Reddit posts and TikTok videos all praising the mat’s popularity with babies and parents’ inability to get “Maybe” out of their heads.
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A spokesperson from Fisher-Price wouldn’t provide exact numbers on the mat’s success, but did share that it’s considered the number one gym in the world according to market research company Circana. And indeed, I’ve never had an easier time soliciting quotes for an article. I was flooded with responses from parents eager to share how much they love, hate, or love to hate this mat:
“The songs were mine and my husband’s Spotify Top 5. All five.”
“Haunts my dreams.”
“About two years ago, I was at a friend’s house and the purple monkey song came on. I got a sick feeling in my stomach because it reminded me of the exhaustion and stress of having a new baby.”
“A very active group chat in my life: the monkey, the toucan, and the elephant!”
Even households are divided. “It’s pretty much the only thing that will occupy my daughter and keep her in one place,” says Brittany, who lives in Japan with her husband and eight-month-old. “‘Purple Monkey’ sounds like it could be a Kidz Bop version of a Taylor Swift song. I’m into it. My husband is not a fan.”
Says her husband Tom, emphatically, on a separate thread: “I leave the room when Britt puts our daughter on that. It’s the only one I can’t stand.”
The Fisher-Price Kick & Play Piano Gym is a certified hit with my six-month-old twins. Like most of the parents I talked to for this article, I was influenced by all the noise around it on social media. But for once, the hype was real. My kids ignored the more aesthetically pleasing activity centers I’d chosen for them, lying there with a bored look best described as “ennui” during tummy time. With the Fisher-Price gym, however, they were smashing their little legs against the piano with squeals of delight and the force of a UFC fighter.
My colleague Dan experienced something similar. “I respect any toy that can take that level of physical abuse from a baby off my plate,” he says. “Between the dangling animals, infectious tracks, and flashing keys, there was enough here to easily occupy my baby for a solid 15 minutes. And raising a baby is really just stringing together 15 minute blocks of entertainment until you drop.”
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The mat’s ability to keep newborns entertained for minutes at a time is valuable—really, really valuable when it allows you to pour a cup of coffee or pee—but that’s not what elicited such emotion from the parents I talked to. The mat’s viral success undoubtedly comes from the connection they feel to “Maybe.”
Written by Fisher-Price staff sound designer Jamie Hert, the song is intentionally nostalgic in sound: A spokesperson for the company confirms he used a ‘90s drum machine and digital bells to create the “retro vibe.” And if the lyrics (“Maybe you could be, a purple monkey in a bubblegum tree, and you could swing in the breeze. Then you could swing back to me…”) seem surprisingly deep, well, that was deliberate too.
“I was trying to lean into the emotional side of what it’s like being a parent and knowing their kids could become anything but hopefully they’ll always find their way back to the bubblegum tree (or home),” Hert says. When he first played the song to the broader audio team at Fisher-Price, he noticed a positive emotional response from several moms in the room. He had a good feeling then that it would work.
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“‘Maybe’ is head and shoulders above the other songs for me because of its shocking depth of emotion,” says Sarah, who dressed her child as a purple monkey in a bubblegum tree for Halloween. “What’s funny to me though is that there are a ton of Reddit threads and posts online from people trying to figure out who the singer is. I guess it’s surprisingly hard? She’s like the millennial parents’ Banksy.”
(I actually have the answer to that: “Jamie has written thousands of songs during his tenure at Fisher-Price,” a spokesperson for the company tells me. “For ‘Maybe,’ Jamie worked with Sunn St. Claire who sings the song on the track, and we all agree she brings her own sweet personality to the tune.”)
I’m not surprised that millennial parents—a generation that’s embraced gentle parenting and Big Little Feelings—are so fond of a toy that evokes our own childhoods through ‘90s beats. Whether our kids will feel the same connection remains to be seen.
“I’m embarrassed to admit how many times I cried while listening to it,” Shannon tells me. “I would sit there thinking about the day when my daughter would leave the next and wanting her to know that she can always come back to me…meanwhile, my 3-month-old would look up at me like, ‘I can’t even roll over yet. Relax.’”
Anna Moeslein is the deputy editor at Glamour. Follow her—and her twins—on Instagram at @annamoeslein.
