Tomatoes, Tomahtoes, and One-Armed Bandits

And Ed Sullivan kisses a mouse

Helen “Bonnie” Jensen died. She was 84. She was born in 1941 in Pocatello, Idaho, which reminded me of a line from a song in the Judy Garland musical A Star is Born (1954). She is singing the story of her rise to stardom:

I was born in a trunk
In the Princess Theatre
In Pocatello, Idaho.

Born just before the Friday matinee, in fact. She was later told her dad brought her out to show the audience, and she “stopped the show.” In theatrical parlance that doesn’t mean shutting down the show, but rather a song or bit is so stunningly good the audience cheers and “stops” the show for a prolonged period of time. For example, Tevye’s song “If I Were a Rich Man” from Fiddler on the Roof stopped the show when Zero Mostel performed it on Broadway, and when Topol sang it in the movie (audiences in the movie theater broke out in applause).

Topol as Tevye. “Oh dear Lord, you made many, many poor people. I realize, of course, that it’s no shame to be poor. But it’s no great honor either. So what would have been so terrible if I had a small fortune?”

Topol was an Israeli actor born to play that role. His name sounds a lot like Topo, which will remind Baby Boomers of Topo Gigio, the little Italian mouse puppet who made several appearances on the Ed Sullivan Show. Topo would talk to Ed for a bit, then sign off with his signature line: “Eddie? Kiss me goodnight.” And Ed would kiss the little fella’s cheek.

For over 20 years Sullivan ruled Sunday night TV. He brought on many show-stopping acts, from amazing European circus performers and acrobats, to Erich Brenn, the plate-spinning guy who got up to 8 plates twirling on long poles. You’d ooh and ahh as a plate seemed ready to fall just before Brenn spun it again.

Which is how life feels! We are a plate-spinning society, a circus of multi-taskers, and we need to set some plates aside, even though we often say, “My plate is full.”

I used to shake my head at some of the people who go to those all-you-can-eat buffet places, putting Himalaya-sized portions on their plates, including dessert, and balancing it back to their table, even though you can go back for more anytime you like, which is another thing like life, we want it all and we want it now. No more thoughts about “delayed gratification.” We’re like those slot machine jockeys in Las Vegas (which, said the returning GIs, was Spanish for “Lost Wages”). In college my roomies and I would go to Vegas each quarter and play low-stakes blackjack and lose twenty bucks. I would marvel at the folks sitting in front of the old-school one-armed bandits, with a large cup of half-dollars, feeding them, pulling the arms, smoking and drinking. Their hands would often be black from the knobs. That’s entertainment?

And why do some people say Las Vegas, Ne-VAH-duh? Are they just eastern dudes, the kind who wander in by stagecoach and get made fun of for their fancy duds, then go into a gambling hall and get taken for all the money they have?

It’s Ne-VAD-uh, dudes. But newscasters and sports announcers and podcasters say it wrong all the time. They say it like they’re at the doctor’s office and the doc puts a tongue depressor in your mouth and says, “Say Awww.” Nevadans hate that, and will tell you not to call them Ne-VAH-duns.

Same for Colorado. It’s RAD, not ROD.

What about Oregon? Is it GONE, GUN, or GIN (hard G)? It’s Gun, son.

Pronunciation counts. I was once in a friendly debate in college (remember friendly debates? They are dinosaur bones now, sadly). I quoted a source, and the student immediately said, “Oh, he was just using hyper-bowl.” I wondered what that meant. Was it a special kind of toilet? Why would it matter if my source was in his bathroom when he wrote the quoted text? Then it occurred to me he was using the word hyperbole (high-PER-bowl-ee).

All of which reminds me of the song by George and Ira Gershwin, “Let’s Call the Whole Thing Off,” written for Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers in Shall We Dance, where they banter about toe-MAY-toe or toe-MAH-toe, and then start tap dancing in roller skates.

You like potato and I like po-tah-to
You like tomato and I like to-mah-to
Potato, po-tah-to, tomato, to-mah-to
Oh, let’s call the whole thing off.

Those Astaire-Rogers movies are classics, and we’ll likely never see their like again. Fred was the greatest dancer of all, and Ginger no slouch (a funny line is that Ginger could do everything Fred did, backwards and in high heels). Most film fans tag Top Hat as the best of their movies, but I make it Swing Time.

I love swing music. Glenn Miller, Benny Goodman, Duke Ellington. As the 1931 song by Ellington and Bubber Miley puts it:

It don’t mean a thing if it ain’t got that swing
Doo-ah, doo-ah, doo-ah, doo-ah, doo-ah, doo-ah, doo-ah, doo-ah.

Not hard to pronounce at all!

You want a show stopper? Here’s the Duke and the legendary Ella Fitzgerald swinging on the Ed Sullivan Show.