Ish This It?
Friday would be the 99th birthday of a man for whom the name Merwyn Bogue wasn't weird enough. Alas, Ish Kabibble passed away in 1994, so now he's Ishnot. For those of you not up on obscure performers of the 20th century with names taken from even more obscure humorous songs with Yiddish in them (how's that for your Jeopardy! category?), Kabbible played cornet and cracked wise in Kay Kyser's Kollege of Musical (Not Spelling) Knowledge. For some reason the old KKK had much more success in the South. Maybe more than his musicianship or joking Ish was known for his bibble, I mean, for his haircut, which in its day was described as "like a brutal army haircut, put on the wrong way around. The result was that Ish Kabible looked somewhat like an Old English Sheepdog, but not half as pretty." And I've seen some pretty English Sheepdogs, although I usually prefer the Middle English Sheepdogs, myself. Old English was better for Beowulf, not dogs. The good news--for both Ish and my rambling prose--is that Ish was half as pretty as Grendel. Running with the dogs (theme), it seems Ish was years ahead of the "what would we get if we bred this with a poodle?" craze of late--you know, labradoodles, pugadoodles, cheesedoodles, dipsydoodles (a poodle bred with Jessica Simpson).Evidently, the Kabibble character is caricatured in the 1946 cartoon "Hollywood Canine Canteen," in which there is a dog character named Ish Kapoodle.
posted by George at 3:41 PM
16 Comments:
George, it's gonna be ok.
A good night's sleep and a nice cuppa coffee tomorrow morning, and you'll be right back to normal. ;-)
Merwyn Bogue died in 1969, not 1964. He was beloved by the Beatles and can clearly be seen in two crowd scenes in "Hard Day's Night," with his nascent, vestigial Beatles doo. Also, in the Lennon bathtub scene, John mutters, "Kibbible, schibbible," just before he sinks his toy ship.
Maxwell
Merwyn Bogue died in 1969, not 1964. He was beloved by the Beatles and can clearly be seen in two crowd scenes in "Hard Day's Night," with his nascent, vestigial Beatles doo. Also, in the Lennon bathtub scene, John mutters, "Kibbible, schibbible," just before he sinks his toy ship.
Maxwell
Both IMDB and Wikipedia give 1994 as his death year, so if I'm wrong, I blame them. I wasn't at the scene myself.
I grew up listening to my dad say, "Ishkibibble." I sort of knew it refered to a person, and my dad probably knew, but the point was to say it. That's the man's real genius. "ishkibibble. Ishkibibble." The sound alone is worth a dollar three eighty.
Was this the performer on Sid Caesar's "Show of Shows" with one forelock whose famous line was,"I,m with you!"?
-- Anon --
George, I've been meaning to thank you for the good review of my Subversives collection ages ago. scarch@aol
Another fun fact about Ish Kabbible -- he is the father of...get this Albert Brooks and Bid Dave Osborne. Both comedians on the edge. Oy Vey!
So, Wikipedia says that Albert Brooks (née Einstein) and his brother "Super Dave Osbourne" were sired by comedian Harry Park (née Einstein, who BTW died in 1958)
See how rumors get started:)
Very enlightening news. In the 50's my little sister and I fondly referred to our 'private parts' as "ishkabbible." I loved the word, but all these years had no idea where it came from!
my grandmother had this junk drawer in her kitchen that she referred to as ishkibibble's drawer. she was from syria so i always thought ishkibibble was some messy syrian dude- who knew??
How funny. I ust recently opened a business and named it Ischgebibbel. I am a german native and thought it was a workd for dustcollectors, little things aroung the house, including the mentioned junk drawer People ask me all the time what it means and I am still not sure if it means anything.
Isch Ka Bibble is Yiddish. it means "I Should Worry"
Merwyn Alton Bogue is the extremely distant cousin from the woman from Colorado whose mother’s maiden name is Bogue and she died very unexpectedly. Merwyn Bogue was cremated, while his distant cousin is also as well.
Merwyn Bogue died June 5, 1994 as the author indicated. He is in my family tree and all of our documentation shows that date.
So Albert Brooks's father was Parkyerkarkus, not Ish Kabibble (close, but no cigar!)
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