Ollie Ollie Oxen Free (1949); More rhymes; Blck, White, Red All Over

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OLLIE OLLIE OXEN FREE

DARE has 1950 for "Olson free." I was looking at "Olley, Olley Oxen Free: America's Contribution to Hide & Seek" by Florence Healy French, NEW YORK FOLKLORE, col. 1, nos. 3-4, Winter 1975, pages 161-168.

Maybe Stan Laurel said this to Oliver Hardy?


(PROQUEST HISTORICAL NEWSPAPERS)
Other 40 -- No Title
Los Angeles Times (1886-Current File). Los Angeles, Calif.: Oct 1, 1949. p. B3 (1 page):
Rubio finally hauled down old Ollie-Ollie Oxenfree on the USF 30 yards later.

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ICE CREAM SODA, DELAWARE PUNCH,...

A popular one.


(JSTOR)
Cultural Confusion on the Playground
John O. West
The Journal of American Folklore > Vol. 84, No. 333 (Jul., 1971), pp. 342-343
Pg. 342:
In this context, if one listens even with half an ear, he can hear the most marvelous fusions and confusions, linguistically speaking. None of these are as intriguing, in my experience, as what happens to standard jump-rope rhymes. One, the familiar "Ice cream soda, Delaware Punch,/Spell the initials of your honey bunch..."(1) comes out thus in Southest El Paso:

Ice cream soda, lemon lemon pop,
Tell me the licious of your sweet hot. (sic)
(The alphabet proceeds ot the initial of the Jumper's current flame, Henry.)

1. Roger Abrahams, _Jump Rope Rhymes_ (Austin, Texas, 1969), 73-76. This is one of the most widely reported rhymes today.


(PROQUEST HISTORICAL NEWSPAPERS)
Other 90 -- No Title
Chicago Daily Tribune (1872-1963). Chicago, Ill.: May 18, 1958. p. L6 (1 page):
Remember _"Cinderella, dressed in yell,/ Went downstairs to meet her fella. / How many kisses did he give her? / 1...2...3..."_ and so until the jumper misses?

Lots of jump-rope songs, like Cinderlle, have to do with romance. There is _"Ice cream soda, / Delaware punch, / Tell me the name / Of my honeybunch. / A...B...C..." Of course, you miss on the initial of your beloved.

Another in the lovelorn vein is _"I love coffee, / I love tea, / I love the boys, / And the boys love me."_ Or _"Down in the valley where the green grass grows, / There sat Mary sweet as a rose. / She sang and she sang, and she sang so sweet, / Along came her boyfriend and kissed her on the cheek. / A...B...C..."_

Not all jump-rope songs anre sweetness and light, as witness _"Fudge, fudge, call the judge. / Mommy's got a brand new baby. / Wrap it up in tissue paper. / Drop it down the elevator. / First floor...second floor...third..."_ Presumably the dropped baby falls upward.

Adventure and domesticity intermingle. _"Where'd you get the cold, sir? / At the North Pole, sir. / What were you doing there, sir? / Catching polar bears, sir. / How many did you catch, sir? / 1...2...3..."_ In the next moment you hear _"Mabel, Mabel, set the table. / You got coffee--- / You got tea-- / You got salt-- / You got PEPPER!"_ Then come the hot pepper fast swings.

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BLACK AND WHITE AND RED ALL OVER

I had posted from 1880, but this may be of interest if Fred's recording it...Still waiting for that darned Proquest digitization of the Boston Globe, Atlanta Constitution, and Chicago Tribune from this period (1880).


"The Newspaper Riddle Joke," WESTERN FOLKLORE, vol. 87 (1974), pages 253-257

Pg. 254:
As a conundrum, the Newspaper Riddle Joke should be found often in ninettenth-century newspapers and jestbooks, but there is little evidence of it. C. G. Loomis in his searches through those sources apparently noted no new example of it. Its omission is obviously not the result of its being an old chestnut well known to everyone, because many jokes of that nature _are_ included, but somehow it has been overlooked. The riddle does appear in Barbara Bee's _One Thousand Riddles_ (Hartford, Conn., 1882), where it is classified as an "enigma" rather than a conundrum, and in J. M. Robinson's _Book of Modern Conundrums_ (Baltimore, 1903). Earlier examples, and perhaps even the original authorship, of the conundrum may yet be discovered.