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Friday, December 5, 2014

My Poohpie Boy.

It's fascinating to me how it's never too late too learn something new about yourself and your life as you think you know it.
This happened to me a couple of weeks ago.
I've mentioned a website called Spotify.
It contains almost every record album one can imagine.
I've downloaded many that interest me.
Usually stuff that would be regarded by most of you as "old".
I recently did a search there for "Spike Jones".
No, not the movie director.
The old bandleader.
His band was known as the City Slickers.
His approach to music was a humorous one, supplying raucous sound effects to such dignified melodies as "Cocktails For Two".
The closest comp to Spike Jones was Victor Borge.
The approach to music was the same, but Borge's was a lot more subtle.
He never had his trombonists play the slide with their feet and with their pants rolled up.
Jones did.
So I was scouring Spotify for Spike Jones albums, and started playing one.
And one cut completely stopped me in my tracks.
It was called "My Pretty Girl", and was sung by a male chorus.
The lyrics went something like:
"My Pretty Girl
My Pretty Girl
My Girl is Very Pretty"....and went on from there.
There was nothing particularly funny about "My Pretty Girl"
At least not "funny ha-ha".
But it sure was "funny peculiar".
It happens to be the same tune as a song my mother used to sing to me when I was four.
Only my mother's version was called "My Poohpie Boy".
And when I was four, I clamored for it.
I couldn't get enough of it.
Her version went:
"My Poohpie Boy
My Poohpie Boy
My Poohpie is a shmoohpie"
There was a middle part, or release, to it, and it too was the same as "My Pretty Girl".
Yes, I remember that, as well.
That's how weird I am.
I think that one of the reasons I always clamored for it is that I thought that my mother had composed it.
She never indicated otherwise.
And now, over sixty years later, I find out that she was merely ripping off Spike Jones.
What a rude awakening.

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You can search by typing in my name, Cindy Williams, Laverne and Shirley, The Odd Couple, or Happy Days.
My books ,"Show Runner" and it's sequel, "Show Runner Two", can be found at the Amazon Kindle Store.
Along with the newer ones, "The Man Is Dead", and "Report Cards".
You
Check them out.
You don't need a Kindle machine to download them.
Just get the free app from Kindle, and they can be downloaded to an IPhone, IPad, or Blackberry.
The paperbacks, "Mark Rothman's Essays" and my new novel, "I'm Not Garbo" are not e-books.
But they are available for people without Kindle.
I have many readings and signings lined up for those, and the thing about Kindle is you can't sign one.
If you'd like one of the paperbacks, personally autographed, contact me at macchus999@aol.com.
And now, we've got my reading of my "Laverne and Shirley Movie" screenplay on YouTube, and my 4-hour interview at the Television Academy's Emmy TV Legends Website.
Here's the link:
http://www.emmytvlegends.org/interviews/people/mark-rothman

*****

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About Me

Hi. I am, according to my Wikipedia entry,(which I did not create) a noted television writer, playwright, screenwriter, and occasional actor. You can Google me or go to the IMDB to get my credits, and you can come here to get my opinions on things, which I'll try to express eloquently. Hopefully I'll succeed. You can also e-mail me at macchus999@aol.com. Perhaps my biggest claim to fame is being responsible, for about six months in 1975, while Head Writer for the "Happy Days" TV series, for Americans saying to each other "Sit on it."