Jumpin’ Jiminy!
Even though 1940s crooning never much appealed to me, when Jiminy Cricket sings “When You Wish Upon A Star” in the Disney masterpiece Pinnochio, I get a little choked up. The man who voiced Jiminy and did his own singing was Cliff Edwards.
If you’ve ever seen any movies about the Flapper era of the 1920s, you probably noticed the strange proliferation of ukuleles. Known as “Ukelele Ike” (that’s how they spelled it back then) Edwards was the man that single-handedly popularized the tiny stringed instrument, and he only started playing one because it was the least expensive thing in the music store.
After watching his performance in Pinnochio, where he took on the increasingly difficult job of being the puppet’s conscience, you come away with the impression that Edwards was a pretty straightlaced, wholesome guy. The ever-surprising Internet Archive has disabused me of that notion.
See, other than the usual pop standards of the day, Cliff Edwards recorded some so-called “party records.” These records were usually sold under the counter, and contained songs consisting almost entirely of double entendres. Presumably they were played at parties after the kids were all in bed and the grownups were sloshed enough to think they were hilarious.
Hey, a guy’s gotta make a buck (and in Edward’s sadly impoverished life he really needed the money), and the songs are actually pretty funny. They are also refreshingly unhindered by any sort of political correctness to spoil the jokes.
So, without further ado, I now present Jiminy Cricket singing a song about fucking. Enjoy!
You are no doubt going to want to memorize this baby, so I’ve thoughtfully provided a transcript of the lyrics.
I flirted with Lou in Kalamazoo
And I met Odette in France,
I’ve got a sweety in Kokomo
And one does a hulu dance;
I’ve played with the girls along Broadway
And the babes in Hollywood
But the place to be is Tennessee if you want to find somethin’ good.Oh I love mountain wimen,
They do so much to me;
I love those moonshine honeys
Down in Tennessee
The girlies here are very fine and really know their stuff,
And how they love their mountain and they just can’t get enough.They raise my aspirations,
And tickle my fancy, too;
I came for a vacation,
And it’s more than I can do;
Now a mountain gal in a pile of hay is worth two broads in a cabaret;
I love mountain wimen ’cause they do so much to me.I love mountain wimen,
They have such sex appeal;
You really can’t imagine
The way they make me feel;
They came in the morning and they steal my ammunition,
Although I like their overtures I need an intermission.If I were in a harem,
I’d get a lot more rest,
But I’m a mountain sultan who gives service by request;
I’ve asked the ladies all to wait and just let me recuperate,
I love mountain wimen ’cause they do so much to me.(Instrumental Interlude)
Say, I love mountain wimen, they’re clever can’t you see;
They ain’t so much on science but they know their anatomy;
Each morning fair, they take my staff and then we start to climb,
and when we reach the summit, oh boy, it’s really fine.They tell me that their mountain is the best thing they adore,
I”m gettin’ so that I can’t climb their mountain any more;
Now the girlies here, they sure get rude
fightin’ for my altitude;
I love mountain wimen ’cause they do so much to me.
Wow. They don’t write ‘em like that anymore.
The Red Hot Jazz Archives has a good bio and discography, with many of the songs available as RealAudio files. (You should give When You Wish Upon A Star a listen if, like me, you haven’t heard it for a few decades. It truly is a beautiful song.)
Sadly, Edwards’ later years were miserable. Impoverished, struggling with a drug problem, he was reduced to hanging around the Disney studios hoping to get a little voice work. The animators and directors used him whenever they could, which is probably why there were a few Wonderful World of Disney TV broadcasts hosted by Jiminy Cricket. Disney and The Actor’s Fund of America quietly payed his medical bills as his health declined.
He died in obscurity in 1971. No one claimed his body, and it was donated to the UCLA Medical School. When the Disney animators found out about this, Walt Disney Productions immediately offered to purchase his corpse and give him a decent burial. Word quickly got around, though, and the Actors’ Fund of America and the Motion Picture and Television Relief Fund ended up buying the body from the school, while Disney paid for Edwards’ grave marker. I have to give credit to these organizations for helping out one of their own who was past redemption.
While I’m not a member of the Disney cult by any means, I consider Pinocchio to be the absolute high-water mark of animation as an art form. From the living, breathing characters to the gorgeous watercolor background paintings, it’s an amazing achievement. (Watercolor backgrounds would not be used again in an animated feature until Disney’s Lilo and Stitch in 2002, which unless I’m mistaken is the last traditional cell-based animation Disney did — a vastly underrated film itself, by the way: check out the wordless acting of the older sister during the surfing scene.)
