A children's punning/rhyming game

[Wilson Gray]

On Jul 24, 2004, at 1:30 PM, Jonathan Lighter wrote:

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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at YAHOO.COM>
> Subject:      Re: A children's punning/rhyming game
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> Shd have said that the incarnation of Froggy the Gremlin that I
> remember appeared on the Saturday morning TV show, "Andy's Gang," with
> Andy Devine, sponsored by Buster Brown Shoes.  Each week, as you may
> remember, Froggy would "plunk his Magic Twanger," resulting in God
> knows what.
>
> JL

I don't recall the TV show, but yes, Froggy likewise plucked his Magic
Twanger on radio, so it's very likely that the two "Froggys" were the
same, in concept, at least. Given that there was a TV show of
essentially the same format, I should probabaly amend my earlier
statement to read something like, "Smilin' Ed was fired, when ..." and
not that "The show was cancelled ..."

Andy Devine's voice was so distinctive that there's no possibility that
"Smilin' Ed McConnell" might have been a nom de radio that he once
used.

-Wilson Gray

> Wilson Gray <hwgray at EARTHLINK.NET> wrote:
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> Sender: American Dialect Society
> Poster: Wilson Gray
> Subject: Re: A children's punning/rhyming game
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> On Jul 24, 2004, at 8:55 AM, Jonathan Lighter wrote:
>
>> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
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>> Sender: American Dialect Society
>> Poster: Jonathan Lighter
>> Subject: Re: A children's punning/rhyming game
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>> The (white) character "Froggy" in an Our Gang short (ca.1942) pulls
>> the same trick with the same words. I too thought it was incredibly
>> hip but am still waiting for a chance to use it myself.
>
> Is this Froggy related to "Froggy the Gremlin" of the old
> Saturday-morning "Smilin' Ed McConnell Show" - sponsored by Buster
> Brown shoes: "'Arf! Arf!' That's my dog Tige! He lives in a shoe! I'm
> Buster Brown! Look for me in there, too!" - on radio of the same era?
>
> The show was cancelled after Smilin Ed, thinking that he was off the
> air, commented, "There. That oughta hold the little bastards for
> another week."
>
>> Am fairly certain there is a ref. to the rhyme in use among white
>> children in Ben Botkin's "Treasury of American Folklore" (1944). Will
>> check.
>
> Thank you.
>
> -Wilson Gray
>
>>
>> JL
>>
>> Wilson Gray wrote:
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>> -----------------------
>> Sender: American Dialect Society
>> Poster: Wilson Gray
>> Subject: A children's punning/rhyming game
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>> -
>> --------
>>
>> On my very first day in the first grade 1942 in Saint Louis, I was
>> victimized by the following word game:
>>
>> Q. What's your name?
>> A. Putting and ta'en!
>> Ask me again
>> And I'll tell you the same.
>>
>> This struck me as so hip that I couldn't wait to get home and tell my
>> mother about. Unfortunately, she, born in Longview, TX, in 1914, was
>> not impressed, since kids were already running this game on one
>> another
>> when she was a child.
>>
>> This little front-off game is so popular and well-known among black
>> children that it was re-written as a rhythm-&-blues dance song for
>> adults that was famous for fifteen minutes on black-oriented AM radio
>> back in the 'Sixties.
>>
>> So far, I haven't met any white people to whom this is familiar.
>> Ordinarily, I'd conclude that this game is only a black thing.
>> However,
>> over the years, I've found it in nursery-rhyme collections directed
>> toward a white audience. In fact, had I not, I wouldn't know how to
>> write it out the first line of the answer, since what I've always
>> heard
>> sounds something like this:
>>
>> Q. Whutcho name?/whussho name?
>> A. Putnin tane!
>> Ass/ax me agin,
>> I teh yuh dih same.
>>
>> Anyway, are any of y'all white folk out yonder familiar with this?
>>
>> -Wilson Gray
>>
>>
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