[singing]…she was the daughter of Rosie O’Grady…da da da da da da da…[/singing]
I remember that from a Bugs Bunny cartoon, but not anything about the cartoon itself. How does the rest of the song go, and what happened in the episode?
Please help! My S.O. thinks I’m losing my mind, because every time we pass Rosie O’Grady’s in Manhattan, I start singing it but don’t know anything about it.
The daughter of Rosie O’Grady—a song from the gay Nineties or thereabouts. A regular old-fashioned girl.
Don’t recall what Bugs was up to, but I do remember him singing that song.
One of the best!
For the lyrics:
http://homes.acmecity.com/looneytunes/dodo/155/lyrics.html
A Hare Grows in Manhattan. The episode involves typical hijinx with bulldogs, IIRC. As Bugs is about to be beaten up, he pulls a book out of his bag and holds it up to hit the dog with. The dog sees the title, and then takes off across the Brooklyn Bridge. The title, of course, is “A Tree Brows in Brooklyn”.
Yours, in Bugs,
D18
Uhh, for “Brows” read “Grows”.
D18
[slight hijak]
What about that Daffy Duck song where he sings:
“please pass the ketchup, I think it’s gonna rain?”
Yours in wonderment,
broccoli!
thanks guys 
Y’ know the bouncy little tune that Bugs plays on the harp in Long Haired Hare? The one with Giovanni Something the blonde opera singer?
Bugs:
She’s a fancy stepper when she dances
Go and see her as she skippers and prances
My gal don’t do much talking
Dances even when she’s walking
Giovanni:
One and two and three and four she dances all day long
Bugs:
Oh my gal is a high part stepper
Ginger with salt and pepper
She’s a fancy stepper when she dances
Go and see her as she kippers and prances
…that bit? A while ago, because it’s such a catchy tune, I decided to find out what the original was. I was surprised by the orignal language. I’ve heard songs like this before from the turn of the century and earlier, but I surprised that this song contained these lyrics as Jones did a great job of re-writing the words. Since it’s public domain I reproduce it here for discussion’s sake
MY GAL IS A HIGH BORN LADY (Barney Fagan, 1896)
Thar’ is gwine to be a festival this evenin’
And a gatherin’ of color mighty rare
Thar’ll be noted individuals of prominent distinctiveness
To permeate the colored atmosphere;
Sunny Africa’s Four Hundred’s gwine to be thar
To do honor to my lovely fiancee,
Thar will be a grand ovation of especial ostentation
When the parson gives the dusky bride a way!
cho: My gal is a high born lady
She’s black but not too shady
Feathered like a peacock, just as gay,
She is not colored, she was born that way,
I’m proud of my black Venus,
No coon can come between us
'Long the line they can’t out shine this high born gal of mine.
When the preacher man propounds the vital question,
“Does ye’ take the gal’ for better or for wuss?”
I will feel as if my soul had left my body, gone to glory,
And I know my heart will make an awful fuss,
I anticipates a very funny feelin’
Nigger’s eyeball, like a diamond sure to shine,
But I’ll bask in honeyed clover, when the ceremony’s over,
And I press the ruby lips of baby mine)
Like I said, I prefer Jones’ version
Fenris
ohmygod. and Fenris is a FOB (Friend Of Bugs), too?
swooon.
I’ll stop now since this is GQ
You too?!
Like I said…they would’ve been magnificent brats! 
Fenris
HARE-UM SCARE-UM
(Hardaway & Dalton-1939)
All the world goes gay, swinging on its way,
Things were looking brighter day by day
Nothing ever wrong, life was just a song,
Till that Looney Tune came along…
I’m going cuckoo, woo-woo!
Here comes the choo-choo, woo-woo!
I’m so gooney Looney Tuney, touched in the head
Please pass the ketchup, I think I’ll go to bed
Am I the screwball woo-woo
Throw me the eightball woo-woo
Once I knew a thing or two, but now I’m a buckaroo
Hinky-dinky parlais… vous-woo!
This cartoon features a precursor to Bugs Bunny. Looks a lot like Bugs, acts just like (the early, insane) Daffy, uses Woody Woodpecker’s laugh. The lyrics are very similar, but twelve years apart. It’s a weird one. According to one site, the pseudo-Bugs was created by Ben “Bugs” Hardaway, before he left WB to work for Walter Lantz. Get it? “Bugs’ Bunny”? That sounds too good to be true.
I also found this tidbit:
“In the scene where the proto-Bugs sings and dances past a Porky Pig poster, he appears to point at it with his thumb. But if you do a frame-by-frame, you’ll find that for a couple of frames, he’s actually giving Porky ‘the finger!’”
I think the song can also be heard in the movie “King’s Row” (R. Reagan’s best work, according to most). Sung by one of the characters, but I couldn’t swear if it’s Ronnie who sings it. After hearing the song about a bazillion times growing up (all in the Bugs context), I was stunned & amazed to hear it in any other setting.
As I recall, the cartoon begins in a desert resort setting, like Palm Springs, and Bugs is wearing shades and sipping carrot juice like a cocktail. He’s being interviewed by a Louella Parsons or Hedda Hopper type celebrity gossip columnist, who asks him what his life was like growing up. Fade to Bugs the youngster on the Lower East Side skipping down the street signing “She’s the Daughter of Rosie O’Grady…”
Sofa King wrote:
If it’s not a true story, then there must be a conspiracy. Both Mel Blanc and Chuck Jones have alluded to this in their autobiographies. I think Jones even has some form of documentation, but you can take it with however many grains of salt you want.
It’s been mentioned before, but the music used on the WB cartoons of that era is nothing short of mastery. The selections, the performances (by Blanc as well as the orchestra) and the matching to the visuals is stunning. Even though it’s meant to be incidental, take some time and actually focus on how well it’s done. It’s really impressive.
Regarding Bugs’ (Hardaway) Bunny:
In Tex Avery: King of Cartoons, Joe Adamson interviews someone (it might have been Avery, I don’t recall) who pulls out a Model Sheet – one of those sheets filled with drawings of the character from all sides, so that artists can draw the character consistently – that is headlined “Bugs’ Bunny”. That seems pretty conclusive to me.
Yes, Cal, it may have been Chuck Jones who showed that model sheet. That’s must be what I saw in Jones’s book, with accompanying explanation.
Now that I think about it, though, it may be in an archive at the WB animation studios, and is available on loan to big muckety-mucks like Avery and Jones for purposes such as you and I have made reference.
Thanks for helping confirm my earlier post, though. I knew I hadn’t dreamed it.