“Wunderbar”–pronounced “VoonderBahr”– is something that just recently popped up in my head…well, sorta. Back in the day–other ancient persons such as myself may remember–there was a pop music style around the late forties, early fifties (WAY before the Beatles, or even Elvis made the scene)featuring vocal groups, like the Andrews Sisters (Patty, Maxine and LaVerne, remember them?)(even the Lennon Sisters from the Lawrence Welk show) and miscellaneous others, singing mostly pretty “whitebread”-type songs like “How Much Is That Doggie in the Window?” or “Grandfather’s Clock” or even ersatz folk-y tunes like “Gimme, Gimme Hassenpfeffer” (How’s that for fake-folk? Something to do with bunnies, I think.) , OR “Wunderbar”, which I think is supposed to mean “Wonderful” in German–not that Germans would necessarily recognize it.
So, anyway, this all came wandering back into my head with this ungodly heat we’ve had lately reminding me of the”good ol’ days” When, in the summers we would go into town with the rest of the farmers on Saturday night. Mom took us kids to the Ben Franklin and the grocery store and the library while Dad went to the Implement store (International Harvester & other miscellaneous tractor stuff–where the guys hung out), then we’d all go to the Isaly’s for ice cream (one scoop each), then home to watch the Lucky Strike Hit Parade on the black & white TV…with the windows all open to catch the breeze, since air conditioning wasn’t even a gleam in somebody’s eye out in the boonies. The show, featuring Dorothy Collins, Giselle McKenzie, “Snooky” Lanson and Gordon McCray, highlighted the top ten songs on the Hit Parade for the previous week; if one tune was on the top ten for a long time they must have had a heckuva time coming up with a different setting every Saturday. Some of the vignettes could get pretty far “out there”. How much could you do with the doggies, for instance?
Anyway, the song “Wunderbar” popped back into my head as I was contemplating the wash which I was hanging out on the line (It’s been a good summer for that, particularly good for perspiration stains), but not the real words to the song : “Wunderbar! Wunderbar! What a glorious night for song! See that bright, shining star! What a night for Wunderbar!”…or words to that effect.
No, what I was stuck singing to myself went like this: “Underwear! Underwear! You should change your underwear! You’re polluting the air with your stinkin’ underwear.” Try humming THAT along! They didn’t do songs like that on the air, even back then. Nowadays, the words might very well be unprintable…but somebody would surely print them.
Anybody remember what L S M F T means?
