A whole long time in the past I went to college with MAB. One of our teachers used to teach us a sort of history of dance in America from the Cakewalk to the Lindy Hop. Much of the semester was devoted to the Shim Sham, which is a gloriously fun, if difficult, sort of a soft shoe kind of a thing. The final part of the lesson is, of course, to make the dances your own and MAB was part of a small group of intensely creative guys who found a current song and performed the whole Shim Sham, in the characters they'd developed, using this song.
Apparently a week or so ago Craig Ferguson resurrected the song for one of his fun pre-show videos (thank you DVR technology). He didn't include the Shim Sham but he did make me want to dance it again. If you need a little pick-me-up then surely the beat beat beat of these tom toms will give you a lift.
Wednesday, June 17, 2009
Dear MAB, I Remember
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This reminds me very much of Ernie Kovacs, whom I loved dearly even though he died the year I was born. There is not enough of this on telvision, in my humble. Thanks for sharing it; I don't generally get to see late night television.
ReplyDeleteThat is hilarious. I love the puppets. But then, I always love puppets. In Istanbul you would naturally find a camel, a shark and a dinosaur.
ReplyDeleteThe song was not exactly current even then, although the recording by They Might Be Giants was. The song actually dates back to the fifties, originally done by The Four Lads. But TMBG's version was way more fun. And just the right tempo for shim-shammin'.
Gotta love TMBG!
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