Sunday, January 05, 2003

Knees Up!

More Goon Show nonsense... one of the jokes used in The Lost Gold Mine and The Whistling Spy Enigma is the phrase "Knees Up". For instance, in the Whistling Spy Enigma (scripts: sroden, thegoonshow, spidersweb):

FX: DOOR BEING OPENED ABRUPTLY
Moriarty: Ah, Captain Seagoon. Hands up!
Major: Oooh!
Moriarty: Who are you?
Major: Mother Brown
Moriarty: Knees up

So why the response, "Knees up"? Which is delivered in rapid-fire stacatto style turning it into a joke. (A joke also used in the Lost Gold Mine of Charlotte and The Spy or Who is Pink Oboe.)

Well, there's a children's song about a dance called Knees Up Mother Brown. (sources: KIDiddles, World Kids):

There came a girl from France
Who didn't know how to dance
The only thing that she could do
Was knees up Mother Brown

However, Library of the University of Toronto seems to have the more likely version of the song (in fact, there are two versions). Here is the first (and more common version?):

Oh, knees up, Mother Brown,
Knees up, Mother Brown.
Come along, dearie, let it go,
Ee-I-Ee-I-Ee-I-O.
It's your blooming birthday,
Let's wake up all the town,
So, knees up, knees up,
Don't get the breeze up,
Knees up, Mother Brown.

The reason I think this is more likely is that the one version was taken from a book called Songs from the Front & Rear: Canadian Servicemen's Songs of the Second World War - which, given the heavy influence that WW2 seems to have on the humor of the Goon Show makes this one seem likely. One of the interesting cross-reference items here is that the song features the phrase "Ee-I-Ee-I-Ee-I-O" which I've also been wondering about what it means or where it sourced from.

On the other hand, the character of Moriarty is supposedly from France...

posted by Wuphon's at 6:02 PM