There's so much Republican meltdown fascist insanity the last few days (and yes, for far longer), that every once in a while you just have to clear out the much. So, this morning we have a bit of enjoyable fluff. Dick’s Sporting Goods has been running an ad that uses part of the song “There She Is, Miss America.” I take note of this for an odd, personal reason. The song is written by Bernie Wayne, who also wrote the song “Blue Velvet.” A few decades back, I was at a friend’s how for a holiday dinner, and one of the guests was -- Bernie Wayne. Also there was Grace Kahn, the widow of Gus Kahn who wrote just legendary songs as “Makin’ Whoopee,” “It Had to Be You,” “Dream a Little Dream of Me,” and much more. (She and her husband also wrote songs together, and a movie, “I’ll See You in My Dreams,” was made about their lives.) The evening was made all the more memorable, though, after dinner when Bernie Wayne got behind a piano and performed, “There She Is, Miss America.” And Grace Kahn, in her late 80s, sang perhaps the most sly version of “Makin’ Whoopee” I’ve ever heard, the first time it was made clear to me how wryly sensual the song is supposed to be. Back to the TV ad, the person singing “There She Is, Miss America” was not Bert Parks, who is so iconic to the number from his decades singing it on the pageant. I was trying to place it, and then realized it sounded like Johnny Desmond. I don’t know his work well, but he was in a Broadway musical, Say Darling,” and I seemed to recognize the voice from that. When I looked up the song, it turns out that Johnny Desmond actually introduced the song in 1954 on a TV show, “The Miss America Story.” So, obviously, that was Desmond. Bert Parks then hosted actual Miss America pageant the next year and became synonymous with the song, singing it from 1955-1979. The song’s story gets convoluted at this point. Simplifying it as best I can, Bert Parks was getting on too much in years for the pageant, so they let him go. And they also had a new song written – though that appears to because of a rights issue. Actor Gary Collins took over hosting and the new song was performed. But it didn’t go well – there were huge protests, many for firing Bert Parks, but probably more for not using The Song. Eventually they did bring back Bernie Wayne’s song, it was just too ingrained in the public’s consciousness. Though Bert Parks wasn’t getting younger with each passing year, so there was no chance that he’d be re-hired to host the show. Yet even there, he did returned, call in for several years just to sing The Song. And in fact, even beyond that, and beyond even when Bert Parks passed away in 1992, the Miss America pageant using a recording of Bert Parks singing “There She Is, Miss America” until 2012! (By the way, as much as most people likely presume that this is all that Bert Parks did, he actually starred as Prof. Harold Hill on Broadway as one of the replacements for Robert Preston in The Music Man. And from all reports I’ve read about it, he was wonderful.) I thought that with The Song being played in part on this national ad, but without the man singing who’s most identified with it (although with the singer who introduced it), I thought it only right and proper to offer a video of Bert Parks singing “There She Is, Miss America" -- and also, the full version. Yes, this is from another time and sensibility. But this particular video is nonetheless a standout, I think. It was from the pageant in 1990 and made special because they invited back all the Miss America winners up to that point. (Side note: In one of Life's Great Wonderments, there have actually been two Miss Americas who were, at the time, students at the beloved Northwestern University. Jacquelyn Mayer in 1963 and Kate Shindle in 1998.) And I think that even this deserves a coda. In that same 1990, the movie The Freshman with Matthew Broderick, Marlon Brando and Penelope Ann Miller was released. And late in the film, there’s a scene at a highly-secret and illegal exotic animal dinner, where the main course is an endangered species, this particular year a Komodo Dragon. (It’s all part of a scam, and no, the Komodo Dragon was cooked…) And as they bring in the animal to show it off before the crowd of very wealthy patrons, it’s introduced with a song – Bert Parks, performing a slightly altered version of The Song. It turns out that 1990 was a good year for the guy.
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AuthorRobert J. Elisberg is a political commentator, screenwriter, novelist, tech writer and also some other things that I just tend to keep forgetting. Feedspot Badge of Honor
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