Speaking of Muppets…..
Did y’all know “Mah Nà Mah Nà” didn’t originate within the Muppet universe? Some of you probably did. But I can’t be alone in my ignorance. People around 50 and under? You wanna back me up here? Bueller?
The first episode of The Muppet Show aired in 1976 and featured a sketch with a character referred to as Mahna Mahna, a bearded fellow who sang the song of the same name with backing vocals by two characters called The Snouths (a portmanteau of snout and mouth). Millions of kids grew up with this version, both during the show’s original run and in syndication in the 80s.
Imagine my surprise upon learning that Jim Henson actually recycled the sketch from a 1969 episode of Sesame Street. He and his proto-Muppets performed that initial version before reprising the sketch on The Ed Sullivan Show a few weeks later.
Not only that, but Benny Hill sometimes used a sped-up and rearranged version on his show in the 70s (something I never happened to notice as a kid frequently watching the cheeky show on PBS — it’s okay, I turned out fine).
Not only that, the song wasn’t written by Jim Henson or one of the Muppeteers as I had always assumed, but by a prolific Italian composer named Piero Umiliani, who wrote “Mah Nà Mah Nà” for a 1968 pseudo-documentary/exploitation flick about the liberal freedoms and moral peril in Sweden which featured lots of sex, drugs, and violence.
(One of the first pilot episodes for The Muppet Show aired in 1975 and was titled “Sex And Violence” — the Muppets were a lot edgier in their early days.)
That original Italian version of “Mah Nà Mah Nà” actually hit the US chart, peaking at #55 in the fall of 1969, and when later performed on The Muppet Show, shot up into the Top 10 in the UK in 1977.
These posts aren’t only for your edification — sometimes they’re for mine, too.
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I’m over 50, and I know that song well, but not the story behind it. Excellent post.
I wondered if anyone older than myself would think, “Of course I knew this song was around since 1969!” or “Of course I knew the single by Piero Umiliani!”
I sometimes have to guess about times before my own.
I graduated from high school in 1969, which as teenagers were apt to do during that period of time, thought 69 was hysterically funny. It was two years later, when I finally had my own flat that I discovered The Muppets — my father controlled the telly at home, and we watched what he wanted to watch (waiting and waiting until the bulbs at the back of the telly lit up bright and glowed). And I remember Mum making waffles for Sunday dinner while we watched The Three Stooges followed by Twilight Zone and then Outer Limits. Outer Limits and Twilight Zone (the presenter smoked a ciggie whilst introducing the evening story) were bloody scary, but The Three Stooges with poking each other eyes out etc was probably the strangest.
Anyway, fab song, Houston.
You had waffles for Sunday dinner? Delicious! I love The Twilight Zone. I’ve seen every episode. Twist endings are my favorite. But I can see how certain episodes would scare the daylights out of a child! The 3 Stooges I have never understood 😂