Minnie the Moocher

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Cab Calloway and His Orchestra, from the opening credits of Max Fleischer's Minnie the Moocher, which included a recording of the titular Calloway song.

"Minnie the Moocher" is a jazz song first recorded in 1931 by Cab Calloway and His Orchestra, selling over 1 million copies.^[1] "Minnie the Moocher" is most famous for its nonsensical ad libbed ("scat") lyrics (for example, "Hi De Hi De Hi De Hi"). In performances, Calloway would have the audience participate by repeating each scat phrase in a form of call and response, eventually Calloway's phrases would become so long and complex that the audience would laugh at their own failed attempts to repeat them.

"Minnie the Moocher" was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 1999.

[edit] Basis

The song is based both musically and lyrically on Frankie "Half-Pint" Jaxon's 1927 "Willie the Weeper" ^[2][3] (Bette Davis sings this version in The Cabin in the Cotton) The lyrics are heavily laden with drug references. "Smoky" is described as "cokey" meaning a user of cocaine^{[citation needed]}; the phrase "kicking the gong around" was a slang reference to smoking opium^{[citation needed]}, and other verses describe Minnie's dream, involving living with the King of Sweden and having a "million dollars worth of nickels and dimes" - nickel and dime bags are $5 worth (once an eighth of an ounce) and a $10 worth (once a quarter ounce) of marijuana.

[edit] Extended version

Calloway also wrote an extended version, adding verses which describe Minnie and Smokey going to jail; Minnie pays Smokey's bail, but he abandons her there. Another verse describes her tempting "Deacon Lowdown" when she "wiggled her jelly roll" at him.

Finally, they took Minnie to "where they put the crazies", where she dies. This explains why both the short version and the long version end with the words "Poor Min, poor Min."^[4]

[edit] Other references to Minnie

Minnie herself is mentioned in a number of other Cab Calloway songs, including Minnie the Moocher's Wedding Day, Ghost of Smoky Joe, Kickin' the Gong Around, Minnie's a Hepcat Now, Mister Paganini - Swing for Minnie, We Go Well Together, and Zah Zuh Zaz. Some of these songs indicate that Minnie's boyfriend Smoky was named Smoky Joe as well.

[edit] Cartoons

In 1932, Calloway recorded the song for a Fleischer Studios Talkartoon short cartoon, also called Minnie the Moocher, starring Betty Boop and Bimbo. Calloway and his band provides most of the short's score, and appear in the short themselves in a live-action introduction. The thirty-second live-action segment is the earliest-known film footage of Calloway.

In the cartoon, Betty decides to run away from her harsh parents, and Bimbo comes with her. While walking away from home, Betty and Bimbo wind up in a spooky area, and hide in a cave. A ghost walrus—whose gyrations were rotoscoped from footage of Calloway dancing—appears to them, and begins to sing "Minnie the Moocher", with many fellow ghosts following along. After singing the whole number, the ghosts chase Betty and Bimbo all the way back to Betty's home. While Betty is hiding under the covers of her bedsheets, her runaway note is torn up and the remaining letters read "Home Sweet Home."

[edit] Films

In the movie Hi De Ho (1947), Jeni Le Gon played Minnie the Moocher, Cab Calloway's girlfriend, while Calloway played himself. Calloway performed the Minnie the Moocher song several times in the movie.

Calloway performed the song in the 1955 movie Rhythm and Blues Revue, filmed at the Apollo Theatre. Much later, in 1980 at age 73, Calloway performed the song in the movie The Blues Brothers.

In 1980, it was performed by The Mystic Knights Of The Oingo Boingo in the underground cult film The Forbidden Zone. There is a scene where Danny Elfman, playing a rather vaudevillian Satan, sings the song as the other characters respond to his calls.

In Blue Harvest, the kickoff to the sixth season of Family Guy, "Minnie the Moocher" is played while Han Solo (Peter Griffin) and Luke Skywalker (Chris Griffin) are boarding the Death Star, coolly walking so as not to be noticed by the stormtrooper guards.

[edit] Notable performances

Minnie the Moocher has been covered or simply referenced by many other performers. Its refrain, particularly the call and response, is part of the language of American jazz.

Modern audiences heard it performed in the 1984 Francis Ford Coppola movie, The Cotton Club, with Larry Marshall as Cab Calloway.

A contemporary swing band, Big Bad Voodoo Daddy, recorded a cover on their 1994 eponymous album, Big Bad Voodoo Daddy.

Hugh Laurie, in a 2006 interview on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, stated that his charity cover band, Band from TV, has the most popular recording of Minnie the Moocher available on the iTunes Store. Laurie also performs a part of the song in the first episode of the British humorous television series Jeeves and Wooster, playing the role of Bertie Wooster. The episode first aired in 1990.

The song has inspired bands outside America too: in 1967, the song was covered again by an Australian band, The Cherokees.

[edit] References

1. ^ 2008 Grammy Press release
2. ^ Lorenz, Brenna & Lorenz, Megaera. (2001). Heptune Lorenz-Pulte Jazz and Blues Page. Retrieved January 11, 2008, from http://www.heptune.com/jazzfolk.html
3. ^ (1999). Willie the Weeper. Retrieved January 11, 2008, from http://www.heptune.com/willieth.html
4. ^ Adair, Kenneth & Calloway, Cabell. (2004). Minnie the Moocher Lyrics from Cab Calloway. Retrieved January 11, 2008, from http://www.spynets.com/lyrics/lyrics_details.php?ID=3412

[edit] External links

• The Max Fleischer Minnie the Moocher cartoon, at the Internet Archive.
• The Max Fleischer Minnie the Moocher cartoon, streaming on Cinemaniacal.
• Minnie the Moocher (1932) at the Internet Movie Database
• 1955 performance in Rhythm and Blues Revue
• I Wish I Could Cry, Music video with resequenced animation of the 1932 Betty Boop, "Minnie the Moocher"