Walla
sound effect imitating the murmur of a crowd in the background
In American radio, film, television, and video games, walla is a sound effect imitating the murmur of a crowd in the background. A group of actors brought together in the post-production stage of film production to create this murmur is known as a walla group. According to one story, walla received its name during the early days of radio, when it was discovered that having several people repeat the sound walla in the background was sufficient to mimic the indistinct chatter of a crowd. Nowadays, walla actors make use of real words and conversations, often improvised, tailored to the languages, speech patterns, and accents that might be expected of the crowd to be mimicked.
Rhubarb is used instead in the UK where actors say "rhubarb, rhubarb", gur-gur ("гур-гур") in Russia, and gaya (がや) in Japan, perhaps in part reflecting the varying textures of crowd noise in the different countries. Other phrases are "peas and carrots", "watermelon cantaloupe", "wheelbarrow" and "natter natter" (to which the response is "grommish grommish").
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Walla” is sound effect imitating the murmur of a crowd in the background. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Walla, sound and effect, not as a finished interpretation.
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Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jan 5, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q7962677. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference.
Overview language is designed for orientation and should not be treated as a substitute for the evidence cited beneath it. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
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This entry incorporates text from “Walla” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.