Sometimes, songs get buried in movies; sometimes, they’re resurrected.

Boris and Carlos began playing music together in Switzerland in 1979. They started as an electronic duo manipulating tapes, samples, keyboards, etc., but almost immediately realized they needed a singer if they wanted any commercial success. They met Dieter, a millionaire’s son who had the luxury of not needing to make a living from a career in the arts, and asked him to join as lead singer and lyricist. He subsequently named the new trio Yello.

Carlos eventually left in 1983 to start a solo career despite the group recently scoring their first hit singles in their native Switzerland and a few other European countries. Boris and Dieter carried on, releasing the group’s fifth album in 1985 along with their biggest hit yet, a song called “Vicious Games” which peaked at #8 on the US Dance chart.

Yello’s third single from that album, a dance track titled “Oh Yeah,” didn’t chart in Switzerland — the one interruption in a streak of homeland hits — and was only a minor success elsewhere. The odd little song seemed destined for obscurity. But fate would have it otherwise.

In 1986, director John Hughes used “Oh Yeah” to soundtrack one of the most memorable scenes in his movie Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, as the titular character races through an obstacle course of suburban back yards to get home before his parents return and find him absent. The song immediately became an iconic needle drop, known by everyone even though no official soundtrack was ever released.

Less than a year later, “Oh Yeah” returned to the big screen in the Michael J. Fox vehicle The Secret Of My Success, this time used over the farcical nighttime goings on at a country house corporate retreat. Re-released as a single in the summer of 1987, the song finally became a minor hit on the US Hot 100, although its sales didn’t represent its impact.

Yello recorded many bigger chart hits during the 80s and 90s, but none ever approached the cultural touchstone status of “Oh Yeah,” a song referenced in countless TV shows and movies, conversations and situations, ever since Ferris Bueller ran all the way home.

So chick, chicka chickahhh… with Yello.