“Mahna Mahna” | How a ditty from a soft-core Italian movie became the Muppets’ catchiest tune

Saturday, December 10, 2011

“Mahna Mahna” | How a ditty from a soft-core Italian movie became the Muppets’ catchiest tune

You know that tune you might have hummed playing with Legos after watching the Muppets? Prepare to have your childhood innocence stomped upon:

With guest vocalists ranging from Joanna Newsom to Mickey Rooney, the soundtrack to The Muppets reboot leaves no demographic unserved. But the song audiences are likely to be humming on the way out of the theater wasn’t composed, or even recorded, for the new film. Jim Henson’s immortal creations have lent their distinctive voices to plenty of great songs— “Bein’ Green,” written by Henson standby Joe Raposo, or Paul Williams’ “Rainbow Connection” —but none quite have the nagging persistence of “Mahna Mahna,” which helps bring The Muppets to a rousing finish.

“Mahna Mahna” is as catchy as a song can be, like a fishing hook stuck in your tympanum. Most people know the tune from a classic sketch that aired during The Muppet Show’s 1976 premiere, in which an orange-haired hepcat unsuccessfully tries to persuade two hot-pink creatures with long, disapproving snouts to get into the “Mahna Mahna” groove. But the bit goes back further, and the song further still, originating in, of all places, an Italian soft-core movie called Sweden: Heaven and Hell.

Slate helpfully posts a video for the non-believers, and don’t worry, it’s SFW. I give it a day before Fox News uses this against the Muppets, besides the charges of Muppets being communist harbingers of doom and indoctrination.