Well, dear readers, I finally reset the clock in the bedroom and it is now the time that is supposed to be. Isn’t that exciting? Isn’t that just too too? Wasn’t it fun getting to know each other yesterday? Wasn’t it just too too? I had a grand time reading all your posts and I feel that I know you all so well that we should have a party – a Hainsie/Kimlet party where we can eat cheese slices and ham chunks and dance the Hora, or perhaps even the Blackbottom, all the livelong night. We can even invite some strangers who can look at us askance and scratch their collective heads in wonderment and confusion.
I’ll bet you all thought I’d forgotten and/or abandoned the story of Meltz and Ernest: The Unvarnished Truth. Well, I haven’t forgotten and/or abandoned the story of Meltz and Ernest: The Unvarnished Truth and today we will be continuing that very story.
Don’t you think Mr. Mark Bakalor will be proud as a punchbowl when he sees these neat and tidy little paragraphs? They are well kempt, these paragraphs are. They are trim and lithe and buff and toned with abs and buns of steel.
However, I’ve begun to realize that short paragraphs do not necessarily result in long notes. When I write short paragraphs it is difficult for me, for I lose my train of thought, thoughts are abruptly ended, I cannot find my rhythm and the flow is impeded. I don’t know about you, dear readers, but I cannot have my flow impeded. My flow must be unimpeded at all times otherwise my flow might atrophy and we can’t have that now, can we? Can we give the word “atrophy” an award – that way “atrophy” can have a trophy. Isn’t it amazing that by merely inserting a space in “atrophy” you get something wholly new? Perhaps if I inserted a space somewhere on my very own person I’d get something wholly new. I love the idea of inserting a space somewhere and coming up with something wholly new, don’t you, dear readers? It’s vividly exciting, don’t you think? For example, I’m going to insert a space right here and come up with something wholly new.
You see? Well, I think we’ve beaten that into the ground. I must tell you we have had no Highest or even High Winner in our Unseemly Trivia Contest. I really didn’t think it was all that hard this week, but apparently it was. Freedunit submitted several guesses and at the eleventh hour (actually I’m not sure it came in on time) finally did mention the name of the show, but none of the other pertinent info. So, let’s all click on the Unseemly Button below to find out what the answer was/is.
Our trivia question was:
Somewhere between 1956 and now there was a musical done which had a rather incredible cast and crew associated with it. The musical had a genuine star, a co-star who had appeared in one of the most beloved sci-fi films ever made, several future choreographers in its chorus, and several future Academy Award-winners among its cast and crew. Name the musical and name the future Academy Award winners.
And the answer is: Golden Boy. The genuine star was, of course, Sammy Davis, Jr. The co-star who had appeared in one of the most beloved sci-fi films ever made was Kenneth Tobey, star of The Thing. The future Academy Award-winners were Ralph Burns, Tony Walton and Arthur Penn. The several future choregraphers were Jaime Rogers, Lester Wilson and Baayork Lee. And, of course, the show was recently done as an Encores! presentation. I have always loved the score to this show, by Mr. Strouse and Mr. Adams. Especially This Is The Life, While The City Sleeps, Night Song, Don’t Forget 127th Street, I Wanna Be With You – in fact, I love all the songs. So, no sparkling prize this week, but we’ll be back with another question on Saturday.
THE MELTZ AND ERNEST STORY: THE UNVARNISHED TRUTH
Hinky Meltz was living on the lower east side of New York and Ernest Ernest was living on the upper west side of New York. They’d both taken odd jobs to support themselves, but Hinky’s passion for composing and Ernest’s passion for words were always first and foremost in their respective minds. And so, in the early 1950s, Hinky was working as a waffle cone salesman and Ernest was working as a gopher in a law office. Hinky wrote one of his most enduring pieces during this time – a wonderful semi-classical piece called The Waffle Cone Rhapsody. And Ernest Ernest wrote one of his cleverest lyrics during this time – because most of what he did at the law office was get the weighty law books off the shelves and put them on the desks of the various lawyers, he wrote a clever song entitled Laying Down the Law.
One fine day, both men had come to mid-town Manhattan and they both happened to take their lunch at the Horn and Hardart. Hinky had an egg salad sandwich, while Ernest Ernest had a tuna on rye. As fate would have it, Hinky was sitting at his table writing on a sheet of music paper some melody that had just come into his head. The egg salad sandwich had inspired him to write a lively mazurka, and a melody was just pouring out of him. At another table, Ernest Ernest was working on his latest lyric, Eating a Tuna Sandwich on Rye. At one point he looked up and saw Hinky writing on the music paper while tapping his feet and humming a lively tune. He walked over to Hinky, sat himself down and said, “What are you doing there?” Hinky replied, “I am eating an egg salad sandwich and composing a lively mazurka. What business is it of yours may I ask?” Ernest explained to Hinky that he wrote lyrics and he showed him the one he was working on. Hinky took one look at it and suddenly was singing Ernest’s lyric to a tune that had just come into his head. And that was how Hinky Meltz and Ernest Ernest became a team. They both quit their day jobs and devoted themselves to full-time songwriting. That first song they wrote Eating a Tuna Sandwich on Rye was recorded by an obscure bandleader named Ozzie Yellow and His Mellow Fellow Men. While it wasn’t a big seller (research shows that it sold twelve copies, all purchased by the Mellow Fellow Men and by Meltz and Ernest themselves), Meltz and Ernest were clearly on their way and nothing could stop them. They formed their own publishing company, Meltnest Music, and their first published song was the toe-tapping Mowing the Lawn. Here is that historic first published song.
MOWING THE LAWN Music by Hinky Meltz Lyrics by Ernest Ernest
Every morning I wake up
I stretch and I yawn
I start each day the same old way
By mowing the lawn
Keeping the grass neat
That is my passion
Mowing the lawn is
Always in fashion
My wife says, “Harry, you’re a very good mower –
You trim the grass with style and class
And I’m so proud to be your lass”
Mowing the lawn
It keeps me healthy
Mowing the lawn
Won’t get me wealthy
But I don’t care you see
Mowing the lawn’s the life for me.
That song was recorded by none other than Bing Feldman and became an anthem for lawn mowers everywhere. Every day, in cities all over America, people could be heard singing Mowing the Lawn while mowing their lawns. In fact in Dayton, Ohio, one man, Herman Berman, sang that song every day for a year while mowing his lawn and his neighbor, William G. Noon became so agitated that he finally went insane and killed Herman Berman with a pair of pruning shears. That inspired Meltz and Ernest to write Pruning the Neighbor (“Pruning the neighbor, gets you hard labor”), which had a brief bit of popularity when William G. Noon was brought to trial and was sentenced to thirty years in prison for the pruning death of Herman Berman.
Well, we’ll continue the story of Meltz and Ernest soon. In the next installment, we’ll hear about their first attempt to write a Broadway musical.
Well, it is time to get these here notes up and time for me to take the day, to do the things I do, to get moving, to… Well, you won’t believe it, but the gardners have arrived and what do you think they are singing? That’s right, they are out there singing Mowing The Lawn. Amazing. Today’s topic of discussion: What are your favorite not currently running television programs? I’ll start: I loved The Twilight Zone, Alfred Hitchcock Presents. Maverick. I Love Lucy, The Name of the Game (a GREAT show), Superman, The Lone Ranger, The Thin Man (with Phyllis Kirk and Peter Lawford), My Little Margie, Laugh-In, The ABC Movie of the Week (in the early and mid-70s), The Larry Sanders Show, All In The Family (first few seasons only), The Dick Van Dyke Show, The Mary Tyler Moore Show, The Jack Benny Program and a million others I’m forgetting. Your turn.