The blog Tacky Raccoons posts what they call “Stray polyps from the internet.” They have been kind enough to include quite a few of my posts, and I am a regular reader of theirs. This week, they posted a blurb about the composer of the song Mah Na Mah Na, popularized by the Muppet Show. I went looking for the video, expecting just to see Muppets, but instead I stumbled upon a version that’s both very similar and very different from the familiar one. Like the Muppets version, this recording by Elio is pure joy and fun. And though it is done with live people rather than puppets, I truly enjoyed it and hope you will too. Earworm incoming…

You can listen to the entire Il Complesso Di Tadà album on YouTube.

Rabbit hole time. I wanted to know more about the song, so I did some research and came up with another entertaining video, The Strange History of Mahna Mahna, by Mike P. The song was composed by Italian musician Piero Umiliani, and was part of the Italian film Svezia, Inferno e Paradiso (Sweden, Heaven and Hell). Because I was only 4 when the song appeared on the scene in 1968, I was completely unaware that it actually spent some time on the music charts. And because it doesn’t rely on any particular language, it traveled the globe and was pretty much popular for at least a little while across Europe and the Americas. It made appearances on The Benny Hill Show, The Ed Sullivan Show, and multiple other shows. Apparently, once Jim Henson got involved, the message turned subversive. What fun! And whatever version you watch, whatever message you take away, however you spell it, Mah Na Mah Na is just about the catchiest, most irresistible song ever written.

And now, the version we all know and love!