The references...

[rabidsamfan]

Etaoin shrdlu: These are the first few letters of an alphabet (including the space) set into frequency of use for English. Not coincidentally, it's also the sequence of the first line of keys on a linotype machine. Back in the days when newspapers were put together by linotype, the operators would use that line both as a test of the machine, and also the way to finish out a line where they had made an error. Since it was a very obvious set, the compositors would pull the error lines before they actually got into the paper... except that sometimes they missed.

Mud, mud, glorious mud: The chorus of "The Hippopotamus Song" by Flanders and Swann. Flanders and Swann were two English gentlemen who wrote, and performed many wonderfully silly (and occasionally pointed) songs around the middle of the last century. Their signature tune was the Hippopotamus Song, and they always encouraged the audience to join in... Occasionally in Russian or Tongan...

Klaatu Barada Nikto: The most important piece of dialogue from a wonderful Sci Fi movie of the fifties called "The Day the Earth Stood Still." It also makes an appearance in "Army of Darkness"...

Poisoning pigeons in the park: Another silly song, this time from Tom Lehrer, who was America's answer to people like Flanders and Swann.

Once there was a shaggy dog: Shaggy dog stories are a kind of a joke where the setup goes on and on and on and on and the punchline is... well... let's just say that a very good teller of shaggy dog stories spends a lot of time sleeping in trees, out of reach of the angry mobs.

Beans in your ears: Still another silly song, this one learned from the radio in my giddy youth. It starts out "My mommy said not to put beans in my ears" and goes downhill from there.

I'm not making this up, you know: There may be other sources, but for me this is the line that breaks me in half when I'm listening to Anna Russell's wonderful explanation of the Ring of the Nibelung.

I went to sleep with gum in my mouth: *blush* The corrected text is the first line of "Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day" by Judith Viorst.

Some are boojums: From "The Hunting of the Snark" by Lewis Carroll

My object all sublime: is the first line of the Mikado's song in Gilbert and Sullivan's masterpiece "The Mikado".

If there's a demand, I'll try to find links. When I recover from the hordes of children that were at the library today anyway...

ETA:
11: Five is right out! And oh, yes... Monty Python and the Holy Grail!

Comments

[shirebound]

Fun!

*hopes you have a more peaceful day tomorrow*

[fictualities.livejournal.com]

Ever since you posted the original list, "The Hippopatamus Song" has been running through my head.

ARGH.

Now it's running through my head more.

DOUBLE ARGH.

I love love love the song. But. ARGH. *crawls away*

[rabidsamfan.livejournal.com]

*snicker*

I quite understand. My own earworms keep switching off between "The Gasman Cometh" and "Have Some Madeira M'Dear", both of which I could probably cure if I could JUST FIND MY CDs!....

*darts off to listen to Anna Russell again in hopes of distracting herself.*

[rabidsamfan.livejournal.com]

Not likely. But I'll have Friday off, thanks to "Evacuation Day". What clever British Troops, to leave Boston during the Revolution just at the right time to allow everyone to watch the St. Patrick's Day parade!

[dreamflower]

Mud, mud, glorious mud!
Nothing quite like it for cooling the blood--
So follow me, follow
Down to the hollow
And there let us wallow
In Glooooorious Mud!

For some reason paired in my mind forever with:

I wish I was a little bar of soap!
(bar of soap)
I wish I was a little bar of soap!
(bar of soap)
I'd go slippy, slippy slidy
Over everybody's hidy
Oh, I wish I was a little bar of soap!
(bar of soap)

[lame-pegasus.livejournal.com]

Funny enough I didn't recognize any of the lines from anywhere except: "Some are boojums". There was a glorious recording in the eighties by the english artist Mike Batt who actually set "The Hunting of the Snark" into music (including a wonderful song called "The pig must die", sung by Roger Daltrey from "The Who"). I should really send you a copy if you don't know it already.

[surgicalsteel.livejournal.com]

All the world seems in tune
On a spring afternoon
As we're poisoning pigeons in the park...

*giggles*

[rabidsamfan.livejournal.com]

*falls off chair, laughing*

Oh, I haven't heard that song in forever! Now I'm going to have to hunt out the lyrics.

[rabidsamfan.livejournal.com]

Ooh, yes, please! I don't know that version.

[rabidsamfan.livejournal.com]

When they see us coming the birdies all try to hide.
But they'll still go for peanuts when coated with cyanide!

[lame-pegasus.livejournal.com]

Eureka - just found my private copy in my CD-tower (I had searched for it at amazon Germany and USA, but it is nowhere available any more - an there are only two auctions on ebay still running, and one of them actually offers it for more than 100 $. I seem to own a treasure.)

I'll make a copy of my own copy, okay?

[sila-lumenn.livejournal.com]

OMG! I haven't heard the little bar of soap song in like, FOREVER! Now I'm gonna be singing it all day long.

ROFL!