Popularised by The Muppets in 1969, “Mah-Nà Mah-Nà” is a gloriously absurd and defiantly wordless earworm with a surprising history.
It was written — in haste — the previous year as part of the soundtrack to an Italian softcore exploitation film, Sweden: Heaven and Hell. Directed by Luigi Scattini, the documentary gave a guided tour of “the sex capital of the world where topless bands beat out the throbbing rhythms of a turned-on generation” and offered insight into the “roving motorcycle bands preying on innocent young girls wherever and whenever they find them”.
The soundtrack was bashed out by prolific Tuscan jazz composer Piero Umiliani.“Mah-Nà Mah-Nà” featured in a section of the film in which a group of girls walked to a mountain sauna before “innocently” cavorting half-naked in the snow. The nonsense-scat call-and-response vocals were sung by Alessandro Alessandroni (who had provided the guitar and whistle parts to Ennio Morricone’s theme for Sergio Leone’s film A Fistful of Dollars in 1964) and his wife Giulia.
The covers came quick and fast, making it a hit in many countries. In 1968 future disco king Giorgio Moroderrecorded his own, marginally peppier version (including bizarre snatches of other tunes including the Toreador Song from Bizet’s Carmen). The following year, mystery act The Great Unknowns released a version in the UK, while US group The Dave Pell Singersadded a little groovy organ to the mix and French-Caribbean comedian Henri Salvadortranslated it into French as “Mais Non Mais Non”.
At that time, Jim Henson’s Muppets were performing sketches on the US children’s TV show Sesame Street. The puppets first performed the song on the show on November 27 1969, sung by two wool-plaited Muppets (voiced by Frank Oz and Loretta Long) and beatnik character Bip Bippadotta, voiced by Henson himself. The loveable comedy of the scat lay in the way Henson often began his scats with enthusiasm, only to lose his thread. A follow-up performance on the primetime Ed Sullivan Show took it mainstream. The female backup singers were reimagined as fluorescent twin monsters with massive eyelashes called Snowths: a combination of snout and mouth. The beatnik’s growled scat odysseys grew increasingly deranged until he literally broke the fourth wall by running into the camera and smashing it
Airing from the mid-1970s and filmed in England, The Muppet Show was Henson’s attempt to follow the success of the Ed Sullivan moment and break into grown-up television. His goal was to create a programme that (in the words of Muppeteer Richard Hunt) “spoke to the part of kids that was grown up and to the part of grown-ups that was childlike”.
While “Mah-Nà Mah-Nà” also appeared in other TV comedies (The Benny Hill Show in the UK and The Red Skelton Show in the US), the subversive silliness of The Muppets’ rendition proved the best and most enduring fit. The song became a recurring theme of the show, incorporating a melodyfrom George Shearing's 1952 jazz standard “Lullaby of Birdland”.
The Snowths and Bip Bippadotta performed the song in a 1976 episode of The Muppet Show, introducing it to a new audience. In 1977 it was released as a single (“Mahna Mahna”) which peaked at number eight in the UK charts, while The Muppet Show soundtrack album on which it appeared knocked The Beatles’ Live at Hollywood Bowl from the top of the charts.
In a 1996 Muppet Show sketch, guest star Sandra Bullock played a psychiatrist treating Kermit the Frog, suffering from the hallucination that the Snowths appear whenever he uses the word “phenomenon”.
The song’s jingly adaptability has made it popular with advertisers around the world. It’s been used to sell Scotland’s Irn Bru, Italy’s Moretti beer and Australian suncream Banana Boat. In 1991 it was given an Arabic makeover on Egyptian TV by comic Samir Ghanem as “Ayez Anam”. In 2005, fans of the Pittsburgh Steelers football team used the tune to cheer on player Troy Polamalu.
Spelled more than a dozen ways in its long life, “Mah-Nà Mah-Nà” retains its appeal. It’s been covered by smart-slacker band Cake(2007), Colorado pop-rockers The Fray(2011) and made a fleeting appearance on Cee Lo Green’s2012 Christmas album Magic Moment. Most recently, it made a splash on YouTube during the 2016 US election, when mashup artist The Woodcreek Faction synched Henson's rambling gibberish to clips of Donald Trump speaking during his televised debate with Hillary Clinton. “That,” said one online commenter, “is the most sense the man’s ever made.”
What are your memories of ‘Mah-Nà Mah-Nà’? Let us know in the comments section below.
‘The Life of a Song Volume 2: The fascinating stories behind 50 more of the world’s best-loved songs’, edited by David Cheal and Jan Dalley, is published by Brewer’s.
Music credits: Liuto Edizioni Musicali; Repertoire Records; Capitol Records; Parlophone Music; Disney; TP4 Music; Upbeat Records; Elektra Entertainment Group/WEA International