"My dog has fleas" and other childhood memes

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

When I was growing up (1960s, southern New England), “my dog has fleas” was this little bit that kids would occasionally do. Ideally, you did it while holding a guitar or sitting at a piano or something. You would sing the phrase “My dog has fleas” and on the word “fleas” you would strike the most horrible sounding discord you could come up with. I do not know why we would do this; it was just a thing to do. Anybody else remember doing this? (Date and location appreciated if you did)

I’m guessing that something like this is pretty widespread because there is apparently a ukulele tuning called “my dog has fleas”.

I’m trying to remember other catchphrases that we would gratuitously insert into our conversation as kids. Two that I can think of offhand are:

“Meanwhile, back at the ranch”
“SOOOOOOOLD… American!”

2

looks like you’re right about the ukulele tuning thing:

http://www.ukeschool.com/ukulele/tuning/my_dog_has_fleas.html
as for the “Sold (to) American”, IIRC it’s from radio commercials for the American Tobacco company from the 1930s and/or 1940s. The spiel featured a fast-talking tobacco auctioneer delivering a rapid-fire auction count, finishing in the sing-song “Sold to American” It was used in Warner Brothers cartoons a lot, which is how I learned about it, along with a lot of other fossilized WWII era pop culture trivia.

3

It’s the standard ukulele tuning.

I seem to recall hearing it in old cartoons.

4

It is for a ukulele tuning, but I’ve never heard of kids doing it as a joke. Except once. I picked up an out of tune guitar and sang that really badly. My brother thought it was the height of comedy. I thought I was being clever and original.

5

“Too wet to plow” – the way I remember, we’d say this when we were bored, and someone suggested an activity that we weren’t enthusiastic about.

“Wanna go to the library?”
“Might as well, it’s too wet to plow.”

6

That’s so funny I forgot to laugh.

7

Bill? Is that you?

8

Does it work for pianos? My father is a musician, and I’ve heard him sing that a lot- I think in the context of my younger brother’s piano lessons.

9

See you in the funny papers.

10

I remember my parents using"to wet to plow " here in N.Texas.
Another was “somebody sure cut through that fence alright” when it was really obvious what had happened.

11

When I first started learning ukulele a couple years ago, I remember some website using a sentence like, “Now that you’ve moved on from ‘My Dog Has Fleas,’ here are some tunes to try…”

I always thought “My Dog Has Fleas” was a common song everybody learned on uke (like “Chopsticks” on a piano). Never realized it was just a reference to standard tuning.

12

It was the beginner’s beginning song on uke or guitar. You sang each word on the note the 4 top strings made individually plucking from the fourth string up. If you can’t play anything else, you can play that! It so sounds like a lament… that you don’t know how to play your instrument!

13

The last time somebody told me that joke, I laughed so hard that I fell off my dinosaur.

14

I liked Rowlf’s version from the Muppets:

“My man has mosquito bites.”

(sung to the tune of “My Dog Has Fleas”)

15

I grew up in NY/NJ and I remember “my dog has fleas.” But now that I think of it, I have no idea what it meant (if anything).

16

okay with the dogs, fleas, and ukulillies already. I’m still waiting for an explanation of “Meanwhile back at the ranch”!

17
18

When I was a kid, someone would say, “Guess what?”
You’d respond, “What?”
“That’s what,” was the answer.

In the third grade, this was considered the height of wit.

19

Knock-knock jokes. How we figured those were funny is beyond me.

When saying goodbye to your friend: “Catch ya on the flip side!”