Jeepers Creepers (song)

Jeepers Creepers is a popular 1938 song and jazz standard. The music was written by Harry Warren and the lyrics by Johnny Mercer, for the movie Going Places. It was premiered by Louis Armstrong and has since been covered by many other artists.^[1]

Overview

This song was featured in the 1938 film Going Places starring Dick Powell, Anita Louise, Louis Armstrong and Ronald Reagan. Louis Armstrong plays the part of Gabriel, the trainer of a race horse named Jeepers Creepers. Jeepers Creepers is a very wild horse and can only be soothed enough to let someone ride him when Gabriel plays the song "Jeepers Creepers" on his trumpet or sings it to him. Louis Armstrong's character, Gabriel, had written the song specifically for the horse, Jeepers Creepers.

Although the song was written as a romance, it has garnered a reputation for being creepy for its use in the horror film Jeepers Creepers, in which one of the main characters is shown with their eyes taken out while the song is playing.

The famous lyrics of the song are:
"Jeepers Creepers, where'd ya get those peepers?
Jeepers Creepers, where'd ya get those eyes?"

Popular culture

• This song is featured in the 1939 Warner Bros. cartoon by the same name. In this cartoon, Porky Pig investigates a haunted house inhabited by a mischievous ghost that sings this song.
• In the 1941 cartoon Notes to You, a cat sings this song which annoys Porky Pig.
• In the 1942 film, Yankee Doodle Dandy, Jeepers Creepers is sung by a group of kids who pass by the house of George M. Cohan (played by James Cagney).
• An excerpt of the song was played in one early scene of the 1955 film The McConnell Story.
• In the 60s, the melody was used for a group of singer-songwriters in Catalonia, self-called "Els Setze Jutges" (The Sixteen Judges) at the beginning of their shows. They replaced the words "Jeepers Creepers" with "Setze Jutges". The song appears at the end of an album called "Homenatge musical als Setze Jutges" (Concèntric, 1965; reiussed Enderrock Discos, 2010) in an instrumental form, played by Francesc Burrull.
• In an episode of "F Troop" entitled, "How to be F Troop Without Really Trying", Lt. Mark Harrison (Les Brown, Jr.) quotes a line from the song to Wrangler Jane (Melody Patterson) even though "F Troop" is set roughly seventy years before the song is even written.
• Episode of the popular Scooby Doo cartoon series entitled, "Jeepers Creepers, It's the Ceeper."
• In the 1975 movie The Day of the Locust, the character Faye Greener (Karen Black) sings the song whenever she wants to disturb her father.
• In 1985, the song was used in a campaign for Jell-O pudding for its pudding pies magazine recipe and TV commercial tie-in.
• In an episode of the anime series Robotech, he song was sung by the idol singer Minmei.
• In 1988,"Peek-a-Boo", the first single from Siouxsie and the Banshees's ninth studio album Peepshow, was found to be too similar to the lyrics of "Jeepers Creepers". To remedy the situation and to avoid legal action, Siouxsie and the Banshees gave co-songwriting credit on "Peek-a-Boo" to Warren and Mercer.
• The 1993 film Sleepless in Seattle featured an instrumental version of the song, to which Meg Ryan and Bill Pullman's characters danced. Pullman's character sings the words "Dim sum" to the tune of the chorus.
• In 1996, The HBO sketch comedy series Mr. Show produced a song of the same title with Jack Black as lead, during the second episode of the second season.
• In an episode of "X-Files" entitled "Triangle", the song is played at a ball on a luxury passenger liner, Queen Anne.
• In an episode of "Friends", a widow is seen performing the song, entertaining guests at her husband's wake.
• The song and title was featured prominently in the 2001 horror movie Jeepers Creepers when The Creeper is nearby (it's released by United Artists, which at one point held the rights to Going Places).
• A recording of the song was made by The Puppini Sisters on their 2006 debut album Betcha Bottom Dollar.
• In the August, 15th, 2003 edition of the webcomic Penny Arcade, a prison inmate convicted of killing someone after cutting out his eyes and playing with them sings this song, pulling up a freshly plucked pair of eyes at the climax. The strip is entitled "From Another Human Being." http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2003/8/15/
• A few seconds of the song are heard in a 2010 episode of Family Guy entitled "Welcome Back Carter".
• An instrumental version of this song can be heard while waiting in line for the World Famous Jungle Cruise at the Walt Disney World Resort.

References