Every now and again, we’re reminded that things we learned through wrestling may not be the actual way things are. There is a commercial that uses a very catchy song, a rendition of “Come on-a My House” made famous by Rosemary Clooney. The commercial is for cat food but when it comes to wrestling, you never know what will trigger your memory. When I try to sing along with the commercial though, I learned I don’t know any of the words. The song goes:

but those aren’t the words I know. The lyrics I know are:

Where did I learn these weird lyrics? Well, the WWE, of course!
In 1996, the then-WWF used “Come on-a My House” in a commercial for In Your House: the videogame, customizing the lyrics to fit the nature of the videogame.

Named after the Pay Per View Series, this game was the WWF’s follow up to Wrestlemania: The Arcade Game, which took after the Mortal Kombat franchise. Stylistically, it used the same digitized sprites to capture realistic motions of the Wrestlers /  Fighters. and while In Your House does not have Fatalities (PG or no PG, that is a bad idea for Wrestling), it does have special endings that different wrestlers could do that were unique to their personas. It also, weirdly, called back to the Wrestlemania videogame for the NES: Wrestling themed icons would randomly appear in the ring and wrestlers had specialized moves. Triple H – then Hunter Hearst Hemsley – attacked his opponents with a croquet mallet, signifying his Greenwich blue blood gimmick. But there was not an apple, plum or apricot to be found anywhere.

The  WWF has a funny way of touching different corners of the pop culture landscape, like with this “Come on-a My House” song. But, they always put a certain wrestling spin on it, which accidentally or intentionally skews things. I wouldn’t be surprised if the WWE released those In Your House games at a later date. Of course, Hunter Hearst Helmsley’s croquet mallet will probably be redrawn as Triple H’s sledgehammer but so be it.