Longtime readers will remember my unreasoning love of the Greatest Thing to Ever Feature Muppets Ever, the classic nonsense tune “Mahna Mahna!”. The Muppet Show version, as ever, can be seen here.

However, I always knew that the song was actually heard several years earlier, on Sesame Street, which in its elder days used to feature some niftily surreal stuff — i.e., the show wasn’t “All Elmo, All The Time”.

Here’s the original “Mahna Mahna”. I still prefer the Muppet Show version, as it distills the song down and shows off the significant growth in the understanding of “Muppet Body Language” that marks the greatest work of Jim Henson and company. But it’s still fascinating to see the original, no?

UPDATE: In comments, local blogger Derek Punaro levels the shocking accusation that the song was actually used originally in an Italian porn movie. This is, of course, a libelous statement of the worst kind, and to think that Derek would dare imply that Jim Henson, one of the finest purveyors of entertainment for the young at heart ever, would even think of using a song from an Italian porn movie is just so terrible as to…oh. Never mind, then.

Wow, the things you learn on Teh Internets!

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3 Comments

  1. Actually, the original original Mahna Mahna was used as the background for an Italian porn movie. Which makes the fact that they worked it into the muppet show that much funnier.

  2. It was soft core porn wasn’t it? That’s stuff you can see on Fox after 10 PM now-a-days.

    I have The Muppets 25 Years of Mayhem CD. And I’m 32 years old. And I still listen to it.

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