Wednesday, January 21, 2009

Little Eva Mystery

Many of you will no doubt remember Little Eva, who made it big with the smash sensation, The Locomotiion, after landing the prime job as Carole King's baby sitter. But does anyone know why this song about a gorilla was named Magilla -- as in, "the whole Magilla..."?

14 comments:

Anonymous said...

I'm sure it was a reference to the animated children's series, "Magilla Gorilla."

Anonymous said...

yup. that's the big-headed character on the cover..

Anonymous said...

In fact, there's no reason for this album cover to be on this site, since no connection with jewish music. see the following footnote from wikipedia's entry on magilla gorilla:

The great ape's name is a near-homophone to the Hebrew/Yiddish word megillah, which means scroll, and is often used in a joking way to indicate a long, drawn out story; and, by extension, the teller of such a story. There is no apparent connection between that definition and the ape, other than making a suitable rhyme. In The Joys of Yiddish, by Leo Rosten, 1968, p.233, the author observes that megillah "rhymes with guerrilla".

Anonymous said...

You are all wrong.
Magilla Gorilla was a conscious Yiddish-ism strategically placed into a pop show the same way all of our favorite performers did the same, from the 1890s till today: ie: all Jewish Vaudeville writers and performers, Marx Bros., Sophie Tucker, Jolson, Berle, Benny, Burns, Jessel, through the 20th century, in vinyl, film, TV, radio, Lenny Bruce, Bilko, Sid Caeser, the Dick Van Dyke show (Morey Amsterdam), Woody Allen, Mel Brooks (was it even necessary to mention him?), Seinfeld, and most famously, in MAD Magazine, especially via Frank Jacobs (in particularly tasty bits by this great genius of literature from Shakespeare to Allen Sherman with the approbation and design of Bill Gaines).
Hanna/Barbera, Mel Blanc, Bugs Bunny, the great Fleischers (Popeye/BettyBoop), and Murray the K all threw in Yiddish shtick like Magilla Gorilla.
Done.

lishmah said...

You are all wrong.
Magilla Gorilla was a conscious Yiddish-ism strategically placed into a pop show the same way all of our favorite performers did the same, from the 1890s till today: ie: all Jewish Vaudeville writers and performers, Marx Bros., Sophie Tucker, Jolson, Berle, Benny, Burns, Jessel, through the 20th century, in vinyl, film, TV, radio, Lenny Bruce, Bilko, Sid Caeser, the Dick Van Dyke show (Morey Amsterdam), Woody Allen, Mel Brooks (was it even necessary to mention him?), Seinfeld, and most famously, in MAD Magazine, especially via Frank Jacobs (in particularly tasty bits by this great genius of literature from Shakespeare to Allen Sherman with the approbation and design of Bill Gaines).
Hanna/Barbera, Mel Blanc, Bugs Bunny, the great Fleischers (Popeye/BettyBoop), and Murray the K all threw in Yiddish shtick like Magilla Gorilla.
Done.

Sildenafil said...

It's difficult don't remember Little Eva because she's so hot and her performances were awesome actually I have a lot of videos of Little Eva.

kamagra said...

You're right jimmy, is a reference of the children's TV show.

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