"Will it play in Peoria?"

[Laurence Horn]

>On Thu, 17 Mar 2005 17:45:29 -0800, Jonathan Lighter
><wuxxmupp2000 at YAHOO.COM> wrote:
>
>>The phrase  must be considerably older in showbiz.  Berrey & Van Den Bark
>>(1942) don't list this phrase, but they do offer "Peoria" as synonymous
>>with "An imaginary [sic] 'hick' town."
>
>There are a number of Proquest cites from the late '20s and early '30s
>with Peoria as a "joke town" on the vaudeville circuit, like Kokomo and
>Kalamazoo.

Lest we forget--Azusa and Cucamonga, those California joke towns.

L

>  The earliest jokey reference I can find is from the 1904
>Broadway musical comedy "Piff! Paff!! Pouf!!!" starring Eddie Foy.  One of
>the songs (music by Jean Schwartz, lyrics by William Jerome) is "The Ghost
>That Never Walked," with the refrain, "I'm the ghost of a troupe that
>disbanded in Peoria."
>
>
>--Ben Zimmer