Bill & The Button Factory

1. Bunch your group in front of you.
2. Explain that as you sing the lyrics to a song, you want your group to repeat them loudly after you.
3. Sing one line at a time, and wait for your group to mimic you before the next line, such as …
4. “HI.
   MY NAME IS BILL.
   I HAVE A JOB AND A LIFE IN A BUTTON FACTORY.
   ONE DAY.
   MY BOSS CAME UP TO ME AND SAID.
   HEY BILL.
   ARE YOU BUSY?
   HECK NO.
   THEN PUSH THESE BUTTONS WITH YOUR FINGERS…”
5. At this point, you add the gesture of poking your left and right fingers into the air in front of you, encouraging your group to follow suit.
6. Repeat the verse a second time, and at the end of the stanza, start to push buttons with a new part of your anatomy, for example…
   “THEN PUSH THESE BUTTONS WITH YOUR ELBOWS…” poking alternately with fingers and elbows.
7. The third verse ends with…
   “THEN PUSH THESE BUTTONS WITH YOUR KNEES…” fingers, elbows and knees at same time.
8. The fourth verse ends with…
   “THEN PUSH THESE BUTTONS WITH YOUR TONGUE….” adding tongue wagging to above actions.
9. Finish the fifth and final stanza with…
   ”ARE YOU BUSY?” (Are you busy?)
   “HECK YEAH” and collapse to the ground with laughter.

Video Transcript for Bill and The Button Factory
presented by Mark Collard

Here’s what I invite you to do.

I’m going to get up on the stage so that you can see and hear me, but I’d like you to be able to gather, almost like mosh pit style, but not that close. But come up nice and close so that you can see me up front. So come on up. Yes, standing up.

Here’s how it works.

As I say something to you I invite you simply as a group, collective, to repeat it back to me. Ok? And it starts very simply, it goes “Hi!”

(Hi!)

Great, so that’s a good start, and that’s perfect. Because it was very cold, it all worked together.

So, “Hi!”

(Hi)

“My name is Bill!”

(My name is Bill)

“I have a job and a life in a button factory”

(I have a job and a life in a button factory)

“One day…”

(One day…)

“My Boss came up to me and said”

(My boss came up to me and said)

“Hey Bill!”

(Hey Bill!)

“Are you busy?”

(Are you busy?)

“Heck no”

(Heck no)

“Then push these buttons with your fingers”

(Then push these buttons with your fingers)

“Hi!”

(Hi)

“My name is Bill!”

(My name is Bill)

“I have a job and a life in a button factory”

(I have a job and a life in a button factory)

“One day…”

(One day…)

“My Boss came up to me and said”

(My boss came up to me and said)

“Hey Bill!”

(Hey Bill!)

“Are you busy?”

(Are you busy?)

“Heck no”

(Heck no)

“Then push these buttons with your knees”

(Then push these buttons with your knees)

“Hi!”

(Hi)

“My name is Bill!”

(My name is Bill)

“I have a job and a life in a button factory”

(I have a job and a life in a button factory)

“One day…”

(One day…)

“My Boss came up to me and said”

(My boss came up to me and said)

“Hey Bill!”

(Hey Bill!)

“Are you busy?”

(Are you busy?)

“Heck no”

(Heck no)

“Then push these buttons with your elbows”

(Then push these buttons with your elbows)

“Hey!”

(Hey)

“My name is Bill!”

(My name is Bill)

“I have a job and a life in a button factory”

(I have a job and a life in a button factory)

“One day…”

(One day…)

“My Boss came up to me and said”

(My boss came up to me and said)

“Hey Bill!”

(Hey Bill!)

“Are you busy?”

(Are you busy?)

“Heck no”

(Heck no)

“Then push these buttons with your tongue”

(Then push these buttons with your tongue)

“Hey!”

(Hey)

“My name is Bill!”

(My name is Bill)

“I have a job and a life in a button factory”

(I have a job and a life in a button factory)

“One day…”

(One day…)

“My Boss came up to me and said”

(My boss came up to me and said)

“Hey Bill!”

(Hey Bill!)

“Are you busy?”

(Are you busy?)

“Heck yeah!”

(Heck yeah!)

(clapping)

Good jobs guys, well done.

Having decided to reward your group, ask them to assemble in front of you, as if they were your audience because you want to sing a little song about your friend Bill.

Really bunch them together – it will ramp up the energy, and conspicuous interests will be piqued all over the place by now.

Explain that you would like everyone to follow your lead and simply mimic everything you say out loud.

To test the water, you start with a hearty “HI,” and gesture for the crowd to follow suit with a full-bodied “HI” right back at you. Don’t be shy here – like most things, the success is found in its delivery – the more enthusiasm, conviction, and crazy you put into it, the more contagious it becomes.

Having embraced this ‘say-what-I-say’ concept, your group is ready to launch into the full ditty. The basic premise is that when you say a line, your group repeats the same line directly back at you. Simple.

There is a beat, but don’t worry too much about that in the beginning.

Here are the full lyrics (or download from the Resources tab…)

“HI.
MY NAME IS BILL.
I HAVE A JOB AND A LIFE IN A BUTTON FACTORY.
ONE DAY.
MY BOSS CAME UP TO ME AND SAID.
HEY BILL.
ARE YOU BUSY?
HECK NO.
THEN PUSH THESE BUTTONS WITH YOUR FINGERS….”

Until the last line, you’re simply having fun singing, all the while encouraging your group to emulate your over-the-top enthusiasm and antics. Then the fun begins…

Upon singing the “THEN PUSH THESE BUTTONS WITH YOUR FINGERS…” line, you add the committed physical gesture of poking your left and right pointer fingers into the air in front of you as if you were seriously pressing a series of buttons on a machine – all the time, keeping to a beat (I like to alternate the fingers, eg left, right, left, right…) and encouraging your group to follow suit.

Now, keep up the finger poking, and within a few moments start over with “HI” (the group responds) and you repeat the whole verse again (all the time, foolishly poking the air) until the last line when you add more buttons to be pressed.

With each new verse, you choose a unique part of the anatomy to do its share of the pushing.

Here are my favourite suggestions…

“THEN PUSH THESE BUTTONS WITH YOUR ELBOWS…” (you now poke alternately with fingers and elbows)

“THEN PUSH THESE BUTTONS WITH YOUR KNEES…” (fingers, elbows and knees at same time)

“THEN PUSH THESE BUTTONS WITH YOUR TONGUE….” (adding to above actions, it is heart-stopping hilarious).

I find that after four verses, often finishing with “…YOUR TONGUE,” I am ready to complete a final passionate, albeit garbled, final verse.

To conclude, I always respond to the final “ARE YOU BUSY?” with an emphatic “HECK YEAH!”

This whole experience is sure to have left your group in fits of laughter and good feelings.

My strongest recommendation is to pick your moment on this one. Your group has to be ‘warmed up,’ especially emotionally. You know, there has to be a certain energy in the room, an undeniable willingness to really play and look foolish for a moment or three. Besides, this exercise is too good to waste on just any group.

As mentioned, the more personality and enthusiasm you give Bill and his button-pushing abilities, the more your group will get into it and enjoy the silliness.

On many occasions, I have chosen to introduce Bill right at the end of a session or program finale to finish on a high, and what a high it is.

Also, the more the merrier for this one. Yes, a small group of ten people will enjoy Bill, but multiply that by a factor of 10 or 20 and you could sell tickets for the spectacle.

How many people can you introduce Bill to, I hear you ask? As many as you can muster. My personal record is 300 summer camp counsellors. Simply awesome.

You could integrate Bill & The Button Factory as part of a well-designed SEL program to develop your group’s abilities to demonstrate self-discipline as much as promote personal and collective well-being.

Specifically, this activity offers opportunities to explore and practice the following social & interpersonal skills:

Self-Awareness

• Demonstrating Self-Confidence, Honesty & Integrity

Self-Management

• Demonstrating Self-Discipline & Self-Motivation
• Taking Initiative

Social Awareness

• Appreciating Diversity
• Respecting Others

Responsible Decision-Making

• Demonstrating Curiosity & Open-Mindedness
• Promoting Personal & Collective Well-Being

You can learn more about SEL and how it can support character education here.

There is no specific health & wellness perspective to offer for this zany energiser other than promoting the benefits of enjoying a healthy dose of physical activity and being silly.

In a small way, you could argue that the focus required to successfully follow along to all of the various compounding actions speaks to the benefits of being mindful. There is also no doubt that inviting your group to be playful could spark a conversation about emotional intelligence such as reading social cues to navigate a variety of social situations.

If you can think of more explicit ways in which Bill & The Button Factory could be purposefully integrated into a health and wellness program, please leave a comment at the base of this page.

• PE Movements: Substitute the pushing with any other physical exercise or movement. Perhaps Bill works at a gymnasium, and he has to walk on a treadmill, climb a rope, do star-jumps and swim a lap. Brilliant for PE types.
• Write Your Own: Make up your own little ditty and/or actions. Perhaps the lyrics or actions relate to a role or favourite person in your organisation? Only one rule – make it FUNN.
• Open the Virtual Adaptation tab to learn how to present this activity online.

• With your group glued to their screens and brains switched on, describe the situation, invite each person to stand up and push back a little from their devices (adjust screens where necessary) and press play.
• Given the difficulty in vision and sometimes delay in video communications, be aware that your group’s responses may lag somewhat behind your own, ie that can interrupt your flow, so stay focused on your show.

This next exercise falls somewhere within my top sixty activities. I don’t often drag it out, because, to be honest, not many groups deserve it. But I’m sensing that today, you might just be ready to be introduced to Bill, one of my bestest buddies. Would you like to meet him…?

Not many of us are very comfortable dancing or singing on our own in front of others. For most of us, this can be a very threatening or embarrassing situation because we get very concerned about how we look in front of others. Now, we are not going to sing or dance, but what if I asked you to all do the same thing at the same time, would this make you more comfortable?…

Coupled with one or more reflection strategies, here are some sample questions you could use to process your group’s experience after playing this crazy energiser game:

• Were you surprised by anything during the activity?
• How did it feel to mimic my series of silly lyrics and actions?
• What makes this such a fun exercise?
• Is it okay to behave in a zany manner? If so, why and when?