FAMILY GUY DUB - ME OL' BAMBOO

ME OL' BAMBOO ("A BAG O' WEED")

FAMILY GUY DUB(SETH MACFARLANE, ALEX BORSTEIN, SETH GREEN & LACEY CHABERT)

SONGWRITERS: RICHARD M SHERMAN & ROBERT B SHERMAN

MOVIE: CHITTY, CHITTY BANG BANG

COUNTRY: U.S.A.

ALBUM: CHITTY, CHITTY BANG BANG: ME OL’ BAMBOO

LABEL: MASTERWORCKS BROADWAY

GENRE: SOUNDTRACK

YEAR: 2005

"Me Ol' Bamboo" is a song written by the Sherman Brothers for the motion picture Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. It was originally written to be choreographed as a morris dance (although the dance has much more in common with the Căluşari) for the film by Marc Breaux and Dee Dee Wood (Mary Poppins, The Happiest Millionaire, The Sound of Music) and adapted for the stage by choreographer Gillian Lynne who also created the choreography for Cats and The Phantom of the Opera.

The song and dance are performed by Dick Van Dyke and about fifteen other men. On Remembering Chitty Chitty Bang Bang with Dick Van Dyke, Van Dyke says that "Me Ol' Bamboo" was one of the most difficult dancing acts he ever undertook.

In the film, Caractacus Potts does the dance to escape an angry victim of his malfunctioning hair-cutting machine. The dance involves the use of bamboo sticks as props. At the end of the dance, Potts collects enough money to buy Chitty.

The song is a light-spirited song about different men and their various usages of cane-like apparatuses. Songwriter/lyricist Robert B. Sherman was inspired to write the song by his own use of a bamboo walking stick, which he used after a World War II knee injury.

It is very similar to the song "Step in Time" from Mary Poppins, also written by the Sherman brothers and performed by Van Dyke. Both songs are also loosely based on the popular British music hall (vaudeville) repetitive action song "Knees Up Mother Brown".

A gentleman's got a walking stick

A seaman's got a gaff

And the merry men of Robin Hood

They used a quarterstaff

On the Spanish plains inside their canes

They hide their ruddy swords

But we make do with an old bamboo

And everyone applauds

1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, hey

Me ol' bam-boo, me ol' bamboo

You'd better never bother with me ol' bamboo

You can have me hat or me bum-ber-shoo

But you'd better never bother with me ol' bamboo

When punting on the beautiful Thames

You use a sturdy pole

To protect their fair complexion

Ladies use a parasol

It's useful in the underbrush

To have a hefty spear

Right

But what we do with an old bamboo

Makes everybody cheer

1, 2, 3, ho

Me ol' bam-boo, me ol' bam-boo

You'd better never bother with me ol' bamboo

You can have me hat or me bum-ber-shoo

But you'd better never bother with me ol' bamboo

'Here we go, mate

A flyer in an air-e-o-plane

He steers it with a stick

He does?

A collier in the pits o' Wales

He leans upon his pick

That's right

Now every wheel of an automobile

Revolves around a shaft

(Hey)

But what we do with an old bamboo

Makes everyone go daft

And 1, 2

Me ol' bam-boo, me ol' bamboo

You'd better never bother with me ol' bamboo

You can have me hat or me bum-ber-shoo

But you'd better never bother with me ol' bamboo

1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, hey

And a 1, 2, 3, 4 and a 5 and a 6 and a 7, ho

Me ol' bam-boo, me ol' bam-boo

You'd better never bother with me ol' bamboo

You can have me hat or me bum ber shoo

But you'd better never bother with me ol' bamboo

You'd better never bother with me ol' bamboo.