astro
April 27, 2002, 3:45am
1
HOORAY FOR HOLLYWOOD
Hooray for Hollywood
That screwy, ballyhooey Hollywood!
Where any office boy
Or young mechanic
can be a panic
With just a good-looking pan
And any barmaid
Can be a star maid
If she dances with or without a fan
Hooray for Hollywood!
Where you’re terrific
if you’re even good!
Where anyone at all from Shirley Temple
to Aimee Semple
is equally understood
Come on and try your luck
You could be Donald Duck
Hooray for Hollywood!
Hooray for Hollywood!
That phony, super Coney, Hollywood
They come from Chilicothes and Padukahs
with their bazookas
To see their names up in lights
All armed with photos
From local rotos
With their hair in curlers
and legs in tights
Hooray for Hollywood!
You may be homely in your neighborhood.
Still, if you think that you can be an actor
See Mister Factor
He’d make a monkey look good!
Within a half an hour
You’ll look like Tyrone Power
Hooray for Hollywood!
What is a “local roto(s)” re photographs?
From the OED:
roto (_______). N. Amer.
Abbrev. of rotogravure 2, an illustrated or pictorial (section of a) newspaper or magazine.
1932 G. A. Chappell Evil through Ages v. 70 To-day our Sunday illustrated sections are taken up by wives and mothers…who sign testimonials, exhibit dogs, dress up as colonial dames, anything to get into the rotos.
1942 Berrey & Van den Bark Amer. Thes. Slang §522/17 Rotogravure section, roto, rotogravure, roto section.
1975 Boston Globe 22 Feb. 7/3 (Advt.), The Bride: a special roto magazine devoted to the newlyweds and soon-to-be-weds of ’75 this Sunday in The Boston Globe.
1978 Amer. Poetry Rev. Nov./Dec. 30/1 He was writing for the roto section of a Sunday Newspaper.
1979 Globe & Mail (Toronto) 25 Jan. 7/3 A few publications such as Chatelaine and the rotos–Weekend and the Canadian–slept right through it, as far as ad revenues were concerned.
Rotogravure is the name for a printing process which was (is?) widely used in newspapers and magazines. So the abbreviaition ‘roto’ came to be used for those types of publications.
Ugly