Saturday 9

 

Mairzy Doats

Welcome to Saturday 9. What we've committed to our readers is that we will post 9 questions every Saturday. Sometimes the post will have a theme, and at other times the questions will be totally unrelated. Those weeks we do "random questions," so-to-speak. We encourage you to visit other participants posts and leave a comment. Because we don't have any rules, it is your choice. We hate rules. We love memes, however, and here is today's meme!

Saturday 9: Mairzy Doats (1944)

Unfamiliar with this song? Hear it here.


1) While today this is considered a children's song, "Mairzy Doats" was a #1 hit and a staple on radio stations in 1944. Do you know any of today's most popular songs? (Here's this week's Hot 100.)

I looked at the Hot 100, and I feel like I just wandered into a foreign land, one where nothing seems familiar.  

2) One of the song's writers recalled that the song was inspired by an old English nursery rhyme. Tell us a rhyme you remember from childhood.

My mother was an avid reader of poetry.  She loved to recite the first stanza of a poem by Blake:

Tyger Tyger, burning bright, 

In the forests of the night; 

What immortal hand or eye, 

Could frame thy fearful symmetry?

3) This week's group, The Merry Macs, was formed by three brothers -- Judd, Joe and Ted McMichael -- who learned to harmonize at home. Did you grow up in a musical household? 

Yes, my parents loved music, they had a collection of records that was amazing. They loved to sing along to the radio.  In their retirement years, they spent a lot of time in NYC, at Broadway musicals and the opera.  When I was 7 they bought a piano, and my sisters and I all had piano lessons, and we were encouraged to  join the school orchestra and chorus, and participate in musical theater.  

4) When the McMichaels decided their new group needed a woman's voice, they asked Cheri McKay to join them. Realizing all their names began with Mc, they began calling themselves The Merry Macs. Have you ever performed with a singing group? (Yes, that garage band you played in after school counts.) If yes, what was your band called?  

I sang in the school chorus, but never went beyond that.

5) The Merry Macs' first gigs were playing high school dances. Do you have any memories of school dances you'd like to share this morning?  

I went to a few.  Our 9th grade dinner dance had a Led Zeppelin theme.  But it really wasn't my thing.

6) Once their recording career took off, The Merry Macs went to Hollywood. They appeared in a film with the comedy team of Abbott and Costello. Who last made you laugh?  

Drew thinks of himself as a situational comedian, always trying to make a funny comment about what's going on.  Sometimes he really hits the mark.

7) In 1944, when "Mairzy Doats" topped the charts, sunscreen was invented. It was first developed to protect soldiers during WWII, and that original formula was sold to Coppertone. Do you regularly use sunscreen?  

I try to.

8) Also in 1944, a board game called Murder! was introduced in England. In 1949 it made its way to the United States and was renamed Clue. It's still popular today. Can you name any of the original 6 "characters" in the Clue game? (Extra credit: One was replaced in 2016; who was it?)  

I never played the game, but I remember the movie. Mrs. Peacock was one of the characters.

9) Random question: The new house you just bought comes with a big mirror on the ceiling of the master bedroom. Would you take it down or leave it there?

Take it down, please.