As for wanting a toddler, check a party shop, they rent out most everything. But don’t rush those sweet Taff girls. You’ll turn around a couple more times and there will be toddlers bouncing on both Russ’ knees.

Continuing to pray for that doggone house to sell!

If anyone is interested, here is the whole Mah Nà Mah Nà Wikipedia page —

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mah_Nà_Mah_Nà

Original version

“Mah Nà Mah Nà” debuted as part of Umiliani’s soundtrack for the Italian mondo film Svezia, inferno e paradiso (Sweden: Heaven and Hell [lit. Hell and Heaven]) (1968), a pseudo-documentary about wild sexual activity and other behaviour in Sweden. The song accompanied a scene in the film set in a sauna which gave its original title “Viva la Sauna Svedese” (Hooray for the Swedish Sauna). It was performed by a band called Marc 4 (four session musicians from the RAI orchestra) and the lead part was sung by Italian singer/composer Alessandro Alessandroni. The song also appeared on the 1968 soundtrack album released for the film.

Versions by the Muppets

Aside from its notoriety from The Benny Hill Show, “Mahna Mahna” became familiar to many from its renditions by the Muppets on television. In 1969, the first season of Sesame Street featured a sketch featuring two Muppet girls who are unsure of what to do, until they decide to sing a song, enter an unusual-looking short, shaggy-haired male Muppet character who begins singing “Mahna Mahna”, prompting the girls to join him. None of the characters had names at the time, but the male Muppet who led the “Mahna Mahna” call-and-response was eventually given the name Bip Bippadotta, so as to differentiate him from the official Mahna Mahna character that would be developed later on.

On 30 November 1969, “Mahna Mahna” was performed on the The Ed Sullivan Show by three new and more fully detailed Muppet characters. The male Muppet character was now purple with wild, orange hair and a furry, green tunic, while the female Muppet characters were two identical pink alien creatures with horns and cone-like mouths (with yellow lips) that always remained open. At this point the male Muppet was given the name Mahna Mahna and the female alien creatures were referred to as The Snouths (as a portmanteau of “snout” and “mouth” since their mouth also served as their noses). The song “Mahna Mahna” was played at a slower tempo and given a more playful, quintessential “children’s”-style arrangement as opposed to the previous arrangement which was slightly reminiscent of the early 1960s Calypso.

In 1976, on the first episode of The Muppet Show to be recorded (featuring Juliet Prowse), the 1969 “Mahna Mahna” routine from The Ed Sullivan Show was reworked and used as the first sketch with the same characters and a new recording of the last musical arrangement. The Muppet Show became an immediate hit and “Mahna Mahna” was the highlight of that episode. As a result, the original Piero Umiliani recording finally became a hit in the UK (#8 in the UK charts in May 1977), where the Muppet Show soundtrack album featuring the Muppets’ version went to number one. It was at that point that the name “Mahna Mahna and The Snouths” was given the incorrect credit of “Mahna Mahna and The Snowths,” which has served as the definitive spelling ever since then. Meanwhile, later on in that same episode, a snippet of the song “Lullaby of Birdland” is ‘hummed’ during one of the improvisational passages, as part of a running gag involving “Mahna Mahna”.

The later Muppet TV series Muppets Tonight (1996–1998) revisited it in a sketch with Sandra Bullock where Kermit the Frog visits a doctor to complain about weird things that happen to him whenever he says the word phenomena, namely the Snouths suddenly appear with musical accompaniment to sing their part of the song.

In the Muppets version of “Bohemian Rhapsody” at 00:02:25, the Snouths make a cameo appearance, singing the titular lyric.

The song is performed in the 2011 Muppets film, where various celebrities sing with the Snouths in the end credits

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1i-L3YTeJJM

Tori, dear – the next time you get that urging, you may borrow my boys. They’ll make you laugh until your sides hurt, but they’ll kind of be like grandkids – you’ll be really happy when they go home!

(Side note: Next time, a video of Russ’ frenzied exit would be great. Thanks.)

Picture it – 3:00 am when the one in question can’t sleep, and she decides to wake up mom and dad singing TV jingles. You or Russ exhausted, not as young as you once were (Nothing against either of you, you still look great in your pictures) are bone tired after a hard day, toothpicks can’t even begin to hold open your eyes, now @ this point which scenario looks best, getting up to try and coax a wide eyed 2 yr. old back to bed and hopefully sleep, or rolling over and dreaming of decorating that new house, minus a baby nursery.

We all have the odd weakness, but you’re strong, you can overcome w/ the best of them.

Have a great week!