When I posted my "final" list of Mooch's fans, I neglected to include
Weeble, one of Magic Mood Jeep's 11 kitties. I rectified that, but it
put me in mind of something Oscar Brand, a long-time family friend,
once told me. It may entertain you even though it's not about cats.

Oscar is an award-winning, legendary folk song artist and composer with
a weekly radio program, "Folk Song Festival" on WNYC New York that
celebrated its 60th anniversary last December - the longest
continuously running radio show with a single host. Oscar's achievement
will be noted in the next Guinness Book of World Records. He's also a
great guy to have as a friend. He was born in Canada, but he lives now
on Long Island. He's concertized with Woody Guthrie, Pete Seeger,
Leadbelly and many other great folk artists, but like any musician he's
had to pay the bills. So one time when his agent called him and said a
New York ad agency wanted Oscar to record the musical jingle for a new
Weebles TV commercial, he accepted - especially since the jingle was
only a few words long - "Weebles wobble, but they won't fall down."
Easy. A snap.

Oscar arrived at the recording studio with his trusty guitar thinking
this would only take a few minutes. Wrong. The director called for
"take two". Then another take...and another...and another... Finally,
exhausted, Oscar was told that they were satisfied. Oscar said that by
this time the lyrics were meaningless. What's a weeble? what's a
wobble? What does fall down mean?

A few weeks later Oscar saw the new Weebles commercial come on TV, so
he turned up the volume. Who was that singing? It couldn't be him! The
engineers had doctored his voice beyond all recognition. Oh well, he
thought, there are always the royalty cheques!

So now I have two memories of Weebles: The cat I forgot. And the jingle
lyrics whose meaning Oscar forgot!

(You can hear Oscar Brand's long-running program "Folk Song Festival"
on WNYC through your computer, live on Saturday evenings:)

http://www.wnyc.org/shows/folksong/