Banana Peel II – Update- An Even
Older Banana Peel Film
In an
earlier post, I laid out a history of “banana peel” (and orange peel) humor,
extending back to the early 1800s. Orange
peel-slipping humor dates to at least 1817 and banana peel jokes to 1858. Banana peel jokes were
told on stage in 1890, and Vaudeville performers may have performed banana-slipping
gags on stage in the early 1900s. [For a history of pies in the face, check here.]
When I wrote the earlier post,
the earliest banana slipping gag on film that I found was from 1913. As it turns out, however, the banana slipping
gag was already so old and tired by 1912, that advice for aspiring
screenwriters cautioned against using it for cheap laughs:
Be Concise.
Begin with the scene that
starts the story and get the audience interested immediately.
Then after you get started
hustle along to the finish. Do not
interrupt the narrative action to show how Bill steps on a banana peel and
takes a tumble, or how Jim gets thrown off a street car because he has no
nickel. . . . [U]nless the action is necessary to the telling of the story, it
does not belong.
The Scenario Writer, Epes Winthrop Sargent, Moving Picture World, Volume 11, Number 4, January 17, 1912, page
294.
A banana peel gag was caught on
film in 1905:
Around New York in Fifteen Minutes
Scene 3. - The Shopping District and What a Banana Peel Will Do.
 |
|
The New York Clipper,
February 4, 1905, Volume 52, Number 50, page 1188.
|
Interestingly, other films listed
in the same advertisement suggest that other film conventions are also nearly
as old as the medium. Trials and Troubles of an Automobilist,
Automobile Chase Film is an early car chase film; and The Mishap of a Jew Glazier sounds as though it may feature one of those huge panes of
glass that always gets broken. The car
chase and the glass-pane-breaking gimmick were perfected on the streets of San
Francisco more than sixty years later; in 1968’s Bullitt (car chase) and
1972’s What’s Up Doc?
(starting at 1:30).
One of the producers of the early
banana peel film was one of the very first independent film-makers. William Paley, of Paley & Steiner, built
his own camera after giving up a career as an x-ray exhibitor, due to radiation
sickness. His camera infringed some of
Thomas Edison’s patents, and he lost an infringement lawsuit brought by Edison. But Edison gave him a license to operate a
freelance photographer; free to make his own films, subject, presumably, to
paying a license fee or royalty to the Edison Company. The Edison Company sent Paley to Cuba to
cover the Spanish-American War in 1898. Perhaps
he filmed someone slipping on a plantain skin (?).
Slipping on a banana peel was the
subject of a song that was popular on both sides of the Atlantic in the late
1890s and early 1900s. In 1893, Edward
Paulton wrote a song entitled, “The Naughty Banana Peel.”[i]
Ferris Hartman sang the song in San
Francisco in 1904:
Ferris Hartman has a sure
winner in “That Naughty Banana Peel” . . .
The Morning Call (San Francisco), January 4, 1894, page 3.
American singer and actress, Julie Mackey brought the song to England in 1896, where she made the
song popular under the title, “Little Bit of Orange Peel”:[ii]
Some of the American songs that
are reported having made an English success are “Naughty Banana Peel,” by Ed.
Paulton, sung by Julie Mackey . . . .
The New York Clipper, November 28, 1896, page 616, column 4.
Julie Mackey is delighted with
her successful American re entre at Koster & Bial’s. The reception accorded her was very
cordial. She introduced her London
success, “Little Bit of Orange Peel,” by Paulton, known here as “Naughty Banana
Peel.”
The New York Clipper, February 19, 1898, page 842, column 3.
I guess orange peels continued to be funny in
England long after banana peels stole the spotlight in the United States.
I have not seen the lyrics for
the song, so I do not know what was, “naughty,” about the banana peel. My initial sense was that “naughty” may have
had a double-meaning. It was, after all,
the age of “skirt dancers,” like Sylvia Gray and Lottie Collins. Lottie Collins famously kicked up her skirts
while singing “Ta-Ra-Ra Boom-de-ay” in 1892.
Perhaps someone kicked up their skirt when slipping on a banana
peel.
 |
| Lottie Collins, popularized Tra-ra-ra Boom-de-ay! in 1892. |
 |
| Sylvia Gray, "Skirt Dancer" active in the 1890s. |
But a tobacco card with an image
of Julie Mackey singing, “That Little Bit of Orange-Peel,” makes it seem more
like a cautionary tale. In the image, a
woman dressed in a full-length, black dress, as if in mourning, points
accusingly at a piece of orange peel.
Did her husband die from slipping on an orange peel (or banana peel in
the American version)?
Julie Mackey was billed as a
contralto, or woman baritone, so she may not have had the kind of voice suited
to light comedy or naughty suggestiveness.
Most of the songs she sang, and for which I have seen sheet music for,[iii]
tend towards the sentimental; “The Girl Behind the Man Behind the Gun,” “You’ll
be With Me All the While,” “Why Don’t You Love Me in the Same Old Way,” “She’s
Somebody’s Mother,” “The Widow’s Plea for Her Son,” “Those Wedding Bells Shall
Not Ring Out,” and other such downers. Perhaps the song was not as bawdy as I first imagined.
But when William F. Denny
recorded the song on a wax-cylinder phonograph record for the Edison label in 1899, the List of Edison Records, for Fall, 1900, listed the song as, “comic.” He may have had a new twist on the
previously solemn song; or perhaps it had always been funny, despite Ms. Mackey's long black dress.
 |
| List of Edison Records, Echo All Over the World, Form No. 150, Fall Season, 1900. |
Peels in Poetry
ORANGE.
A Tale.
An orange rind on the pavement
Sent the Lawyer head over heel.
He split his doeskin trousers -
He shook up his morning meal,
While the wreck of his new "Prince Albert"
Wouldn't tempt a tramp to steal.
So he sadly said to his tailor:
"I've lost a suit on appeal."
BANANA.
Written
for the New York Clipper, By J. Charles Davis,
Boy
on street,
Near
the walk,
With
his chum
Having
a talk;
Banana
peel
The
urchin spies
As
it in the gutter lies.
They
fish it out
With
greatest care,
And
silently place it where
It
will catch a passing heel.
Treacherous
banana peel!
Hats
and gaiters fill the air,
“Helen
Blazes,” hear him swear
At
those boys who placed it there.
Ambulance
and doctor come;
Boy
and chum
On
corner glum,
Chewing
second-handed gum –
On
the subject they are dumb.
Coast
is clear.
Naught
they fear,
As
they readjust the peel
For
another passing heel.
Boys
are having lots of fun,
Sitting
basking in the sun,
When
they see a “cop” they run –
They’ll
be angels “by-and-bye!”
For
that time devoutly sigh.
The New York Clipper, October 17, 1885, page 492, column 3.
 |
| Funny Cuts (London), Volume 1, Number 1, July 12, 1890, page 7. |
 |
| Funny Cuts (London), Volume 1, Number 24, December 20, 1890, page 188. |
[i] The New York Clipper, October 7, 1893,
page 506, column 1 (M. Witmark & sons are advertising “The Fisherman’s
Bride,” “Naughty Banana Peel” and “You Gave Me Your Love.”).
[ii]
Sheet music in the collection of Duke
University Libraries lists both titles together; “A Piece of Orange Peel”
and “Naughty Banana Peel.”
[iii] The
New York Public Library Digital Gallery features sixteen pieces of sheet
music said to have been sung by Julie Mackey.
Revised May 19, 2021, adding Orange Rind poem from Life Magazine.
No comments:
Post a Comment