I’ve always wondered what they were singing on Laverne and Shirley. Now I know part of the words. What were the rest and what did it mean? How was it related to life in Milwaukee wasn’t it?
schlimazel or shlimazel (SHLI-mah-zuhl) noun
Someone prone to having extremely bad luck.
[From Yiddish, from shlim (bad, wrong) + mazl (luck). A related
term is Hebrew mazel tov (congratulations or best wishes).]
A schlimazel can be concisely described as a born loser. No discussion
of schlimazel could be complete without mentioning his counterpart:
schlemiel, a habitual bungler. They go together:
A schlemiel is one who always spills his soup, schlimazel is the one on
whom it always lands. :smack: :wally ;j
My feeling has always been that it’s a vague reference to the Bugs Bunny cartoon in which Yosemite Sam (as an insane king) is demanding a good feed o’ bunny. “Where’s my lunch?! Where’s my dinnah?! I wants my hasenpfeffer! Hasenpfeffer!” The “incorporated” substitutes the contemporary sort of humourless oppressor for the tyrant king, which would invite us to compare the girls to the sort of madcap iconoclast typified by Bugs, heedless of authority. “Give us any chance, we’ll take it - give us any rule, we’ll break it. We’re gonna make our dreams come true. Doin’ it our way.”
Maybe that’s reading a bit much into it, but it’s the only interpretation that’s ever made sense to me.
