Ma Na Ma Na Phenomena

Having a three year old son allows for a lot of time revisiting Sesame Street, which I don’t mind at all.  Especially when I find those great clips of Stevie Wonder, James Brown or Johnny Cash kicking it with Big Bird.  Cookie Monster and Prairie Dawn singing "Letter B" to the tune of "Let it Be" or "Hey Food" to "Hey, Jude" were major early Beatles references that imprinted on my formative gray matter.  However, I believe the earliest and most subconscious musical implant via Henson and his quiver of shag furred puppets has to be "Manah Manha".  Say those words aloud and see if the next sound out of your mouth isn’t something along the lines of "Bump Ba Da Ba Bump". So simple, so universal, so sublime, it’s a bit bohemian be-bop meets Lawrence Welk with a youth’s first taste of scat singing. I saw the original the other day, from circa 1969 where the lead puppet, who goes by Mahna Mahna and performed by Bip Bipadotta, was a wild haired beatnik with bulging eyes. Besides being an obvious precursor to Animal, who later stole the show as the drummer for Electric Mayhem he looked a bit like Marty Feldman from meets the Caveman from the Geico commercials, while the back-up singers looked like less stoned versions of Mayhem’s Janice.  The song, written by Piero Umiliani, is a little bit "Swedish Rhapsody"  meets "Lullaby of Birdland"  and debuted in a softcore porno-doc  about crazy sexual forays in wintertime Sweden.  I recently saw it used in the BBC version of The Office where Garreth and David Brent sing it to annoy Tim,  a classic rendition.  Alas, here is the only video version I could find..... Stick around for the profundity of Statler & Waldorf from the balcony.