Who's Yehudi (Was Re: 1943 Army Slang Dictionary)

[Gregory {Greg} Downing]

Comment below --

At 10:10 AM 5/11/99 -0400, you wrote:
>This comes from the Warner Brothers Cartoon Companion by someone named E.O.
>Costello. I'm trying to verify it.
>
>"YEHUDI
>
>"Catch-phrase of Jerry Colonna. This originated in a gag involving
>the violinist Yehudi Menunin [sic] and an appearence by him on the Bob
>Hope radio show, on which Colonna was a supporting player.
>    Wertheim describes the origin of the gag: Colonna, apparently [sic!] not
>knowing who Yehudi was, asked the cast of the radio show, who
>didn't know either. The search for the mythical Yehudi became a
>running gag and eventually a popular song. Yehudi references can be
>seen in Hollywood Steps Out ([Tex] Avery, 1941) in which an invisible
>figure is sitting next to Colonna and is identified by Jerry as Yehudi [etc.].
>

Thanks a lot -- I know who Jerry Colonna is, and I know I have occasionally
seen his face included/parodied in Warners cartoons from the 40s. Actually,
at some point I have probably seen the cartoons you mention, complete with
the Yehudi catch-phrase, but obviously the joke didn't stick with me -- it
went "over my head."

Given that radio was *audio* of course, there was a lot of verbal humor,
humor based on "accents" and unusual idiolects, etc. (all grist for this
list, of course). I was asking the questions I was asking because "Who's
Yehudi?" sounded ever so much like a radio-spawned catch phrase.

Next stop, Coo-cah-mun-gah!


Greg Downing/NYU, at greg.downing at nyu.edu or gd2 at is2.nyu.edu