I want to share with you something I love watching. It shows my age. It is a dance number performed by Bob Hope and James Cagney.
Yankee Doodle Dandy!
They are having such fun that it makes you smile. Made me smile.
But then I am so much older than most of you that you may not even know who Hope and Cagney are.
If you do, this will bring joy to your heart. We can all use that.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
I remember, but I am almost 71.
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I remember and I am almost 75. This is why these men were stars…. talent beyond acting and comedy, reminds me of Hugh Jackman, or George Clooney — comedy, singing and acting…all in one bundle.
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Thanks Diane…this did indeed make me smile…and I am even older than Lloyd and Susie Lee. Both these amazing talented and charming entertainers were, in their time, Right Wing supporters of Ronnie Reagan, but they kept us all smiling.
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Amazing that even though Cagney was 4 years older than Hope, he dances with such grace and lightness that he seems to be dancing on air. Loved this clip.
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Or how about this classic?
Who’s on First!
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Thanks so much to all! Needed a 4th of July smile with all the doom and gloom in the world.
Now let’s see Hillary and Donald dance the tango.
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The Seve Little Foys? Did you see Bob’s brief bit of moon walking? Thank you for these smiles. I am 69 and always loved all the Hollywood musicals! Totally forgot old “ski nose” could dance, but enjoy remembering entertainers who were so multi-talented.
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I remember at 59 years young.
I wonder…how low can we go?
And a very happy Fourth of July to you Diane, and to all my friends here and on the interwebs who are passionate about public education.
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This too may make some of us smile.
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I normally play this at some time or another for my students every school year.
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Don’t let the charters get hold of this, it’ll become the pre-K anthem. All staff will be required to perform it at 5:30am in front of the building.
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I certainly remember Cagney, Hope, Bogart, Richard Conte, Victor Mature, Veronica Lakes, Betty Grable, Joan Russell, Elke Sommer, Sophia Loren, etc. Who members the stars of the 1920s and 1930s? I an NOT that old. settantacinque
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9WGviIWb4O41:06The Nanny / Yetta & Ray Charles (Une nounou d’enfer)
And speaking of American immigration…and getting along with love…try this one. Yetta passed away only a few weeks ago…and the fabulous Ray Charles a few years ago.
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I remember well and they gave us real “Hope”.
Some different than the tripe that is called comedy these days, in my opinion.
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I am a big fan of Turner Classic Movies, and so glad that these golden oldies are around, especially as a relief from the non-stop and mostly demoralizing news.
Cagney was as light on his feet as Fred Astaire and as athletic as Gene Kelly. Of course, all of their female dance partners danced just as well, backwards, and usually in high heels.
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Thank you so much – you are right, I can’t stop smiling! They don’t make them like that anymore!
P.S. I love you.
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Thanjs
Sent from my iPhone
>
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Ray Charles’ amazingly uplifting, beautiful, rendition of America the Beautiful, live in Miami, 2010
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oops, 1999
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Thanks Christine…love Ray Charles. This is so appropriate. Saw him about 15 years ago at the Chumash Reservation in Santa Ynez (I lived only a few blocks away and tutored on the ‘rez’) when he sang and played for 4 hours straight, with NO intermission. My Chumash friends had seats in the first row, so I could have reached out and touched him. It was so memorable. He is an American treasure.
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Thanks Diane. I remember.
This is from the Seven Little Foys (1955). Who remembers them?
I recall that the real Eddie Foy was hilarious as the shop foreman in The Pajama Game, my favorite pro-Union musical.
As Hope used to sing, thanks for the memories.
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And what do we do as we watch entertainers on the 4th of July? We eat hot dogs.
Here is a history of Nathan’s that just hit my inbox.
Hot Dogs, the Jewish American Fast Food
Largeimage
David Mikics
The rollercoaster history of the wiener in a bun, in new books on the Coney Island institution, Nathan’s Famous
Read This
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Cannot get the link to work…so here is the history of these hot dogs which is another Yankee Doodle Dandy story by David Mikics.
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“Many think that fast food was invented by Ray Kroc when he opened his first McDonald’s in Des Plaines, Illinois, in 1955. But it is probably Nathan Handwerker who deserves the distinction, argues his grandson Lloyd Handwerker in his new book Famous Nathan (in 2014 Handwerker made a documentary film with the same name). Nathan founded his hot dog stand, Nathan’s Famous, in 1916 at the corner of Surf and Stillwell Avenues in Coney Island. It was called a “grab joint”—the term “fast food” wouldn’t arrive until the 1950s. “Give ’em and let ’em eat!” Nathan called to his troops as they made “the sweep”: There were no lines at the Nathan’s counter, just a hungry horde served by countermen who served up dogs at the speed of light. By 1916 the hot dog was already a craze in America: Babe Ruth boasted of eating two dozen at a time with a gallon of lemonade.
The inventor of this American gastronomic ritual, Nathan Handwerker, was born in 1892 in Narol, a shtetl in Austro-Hungarian Galicia. The Handwerkers were desperately poor, with 13 children, and Nathan’s father, a shoemaker down on his luck, had to go begging from town to town to make ends meet. At age 11, Nathan got a job in a nearby town at a bakery, where he slept near the oven and had to wake at midnight to prepare the dough.
By 19, Nathan was on a boat headed for America. Six months after his arrival he was working at Max’s Busy Bee, a luncheonette counter in Manhattan. A few months later, Nathan took one of his cousins to a day at the beach. They took the trolley down Ocean Parkway to Coney Island, strolled around the glittering attractions of the world’s most famous amusement park, and bought Cracker Jacks, sometimes called “the first junk food.”
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Too long to post it all. Happy 4th.
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I realize that I am stressing the influx of others who helped produce the American dream since it grew from the first invasion of Europeans who drove out the Native Americans (and Mexicans) with Manifest Destiny.
Today in the LA Times there is a full page ad (costs over $28K for this) placed by Hobby Lobby and others of their ilk, reinforcing that the US is a strictly “Christian Country.” I do not see it that way…and on the 4th of July, I find I am ruminating on the waves of non-Christians who helped build America, from SCOTUS Justice Louis Brandeis to Dr. Memet Oz, and so many others who Trump followers would seek to deport.
I worry about all the jingoism that is coming forth with Trump and his claque of supporters who agree with Hobby Lobby.
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Thanks Diane. While i’m only a few years younger than you, I don’t recall seeing Hope and Cagney so light on their feet. They’re not only great dancers; they’re great dance partners. A fine way to celebrate the 4th.
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I love it Diane, and I do remember. They were a favorit of my parents. Have a happy 4th.
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Dear One…I was born in 1930…you figure my age…BRR
Billy R. Reagan
(713) 795-9696
(832) 215-8877 cell
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Dear Billy Reagan, you do remember.
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I remember watching the Hope specials as a child, too, and we loved them as a family. Even though shows like this reflected nothing of our Chicano heritage, it was all we had and we adapted (no cable or Internet back then). Only now as an adult am I able to be critical of his homophobic and sexist routines. True, one might say it was a different age and time, but we live in a different age and time–one where our increasingly diverse body of students can challenge traditional patriarchal images like the one in this little ditty (White men smoking cigars along a boardroom table).
Camouflaged in this song and dance are the voices uncelebrated in the crafting of Americana–Afro-Caribbean rhythms, the conjuntos of the Southwest. These and many others were voices very much alive while MGM was making its musicals. I don’t want a unidimensional image of what comprises an American. Images like this remind me how far we have come and how far we have to go.
Quite honestly, rather than making me smile, the piece made me wince.
Just another take.
Still a big Diane Ravitch fan!
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Thanks for sharing your thoughts about Nursery Rhymes.
Regards
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HELP!!!!Billy
Billy R. Reagan
(713) 795-9696
(832) 215-8877 cell
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