{"id":115146,"date":"2020-02-29T00:44:40","date_gmt":"2020-02-29T07:44:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/markshea\/?p=115146"},"modified":"2020-01-17T12:24:29","modified_gmt":"2020-01-17T19:24:29","slug":"more-information-on-ish-kabibble-and-his-odd-relationship-with-mad-magazine-than-any-normal-person-could-want","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/markshea\/2020\/02\/more-information-on-ish-kabibble-and-his-odd-relationship-with-mad-magazine-than-any-normal-person-could-want.html","title":{"rendered":"More information on Ish Kabibble and his odd relationship with MAD Magazine<\/i> than any normal person could want"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

\u2026 is just what this blog needs on a Saturday morning.<\/p>\n

Who or what is Ish Kabibble, you ask? Precisely what I was wondering myself after my wife, as is her custom, wandered through the house in a cold-induced haze, muttering the mysterious incantation. I\u2019d heard it before and had the vague impression it was the name of some old timey vaudevillian. She just knew it because her mother used to randomly say \u201cIsh Kabibble\u201d as an exclamation.<\/p>\n

So I went the global database of all knowledge\u2013Google\u2013and consulted the Oracle. It reveal to me that Ish Kabibble is both a what and a who.<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s stuff mostly about the \u201cwhat\u201d part<\/a>:<\/p>\n

This dismissive slang expression came into existence in the USA quite suddenly around 1913 with the ostensible meaning \u201cI should worry!\u201d, which means, of course, \u201cDon\u2019t worry!\u201d or \u201cWho cares?\u201d. It had quite a vogue for a decade or two and was the name of a character played by Merwyn Bogue on a 1930s radio show called\u00a0Kay Kyser\u2019s Kollege of Musical Knowledge<\/em>\u00a0(they don\u2019t make titles like that any more).<\/p>\n

Those of us who sift the detritus of language for fun and profit are intrigued by it. It looks and sounds Yiddish and the phrases\u00a0nish gefidlt<\/em>,\u00a0nicht gefiedelt<\/em>, and\u00a0ich gebliebte<\/em>\u00a0have all been suggested as sources. The idea of a Jewish connection was reinforced in 1914 when Harry Hershfield began his cartoon strip\u00a0Abie the Agent<\/em>\u00a0in Hearst newspapers, which featured the car salesman Abraham (\u201cAbie\u201d) Kabibble.<\/p>\n

Many people at the time certainly thought it was Yiddish, and it\u2019s notable that some Anglicised it to \u201cI should bibble\u201d or \u201cwe should bibble\u201d. But it was equally firmly said by contemporaries that no Yiddish connection existed at all. And the slang term\u00a0bibble<\/em>\u00a0is recorded a few years earlier, albeit with the meaning of nonsense talk. It\u2019s a shortened form of\u00a0bibble-babble<\/em>, a reduplication of\u00a0babble<\/em>, which goes right back to the sixteenth century and turns up in Shakespeare\u2019s\u00a0Twelfth Night<\/em>: \u201cEndeavour thy selfe to sleepe, and leave thy vain bibble babble.\u201d<\/p>\n

Might\u00a0ish-ge-bibble<\/em>\u00a0\u2014 as it was often written in the early days \u2014 have been a fake Yiddishism? It could have been based on German\u00a0ich<\/em>\u00a0for\u00a0I<\/em>\u00a0(often said by natives as\u00a0ish<\/em>), the\u00a0ge<\/em>\u00a0prefix for the past participles of German verbs, plus\u00a0bibble<\/em>.<\/p>\n

In his autobiography, Merwyn Bogue said that he took his stage name from a song he used to sing on the radio show,\u00a0Isch Gabibble (I Should Worry)<\/em>, words by Sam M Lewis, music by George W Meyer, dated 1913. Bogue said he changed the spelling to make it easier to say. This song seems to have been the immediate source for the sudden arrival and popularity of the term. But did George W Meyer invent it or borrow it in his turn? It would be nice to know.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

And here\u2019s stuff mostly about the \u201cwho\u201d part<\/a>:<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Ish Kabibble (January 19, 1908 \u2013 June 5, 1994) was an American comedian and cornet player. Born Merwyn Bogue in North East, Pennsylvania, he moved to Erie, Pennsylvania with his family a few months after his birth.<\/p>\n

Bogue studied law at West Virginia University, but his comedy antics soon found an audience. He performed with Kay Kyser on the radio and television quiz show Kay Kyser\u2019s Kollege of Musical Knowledge in 1949 and 1950. Bogue also appeared in ten movies between 1939 and 1950. In Thousands Cheer (1943), he appeared with Kyser and sang \u201cI Dug a Ditch\u201d, and he also appeared as a vocalist in That\u2019s Right\u2014You\u2019re Wrong (1939), You\u2019ll Find Out (1940), and Playmates (1941).<\/p>\n

The origin of Merwyn Bogue\u2019s stage name, Ish Kabibble, can be traced back to the 1913 novelty song \u201cIsch ga-bibble\u201d and this 1915 cartoon postcard, which displays a spelling (Ish Ka Bibble) almost identical to that used by Bogue. Between the song and the card, in 1914, Harry Hershfield introduced his character Abie Kabibble in his comic strip Abie the Agent.
\nIn his 1989 autobiography, Bogue explained his stage name, which he took from the lyrics of one of his comedic songs, \u201cIsch ga-bibble.\u201d<\/p>\n

The song derived from a mock-Yiddish expression, \u201cIsche ga bibble?\u201d, which was purported to mean \u201cI should worry?\u201d, prompting a curious (and perhaps not coincidental) association with the \u201cWhat, me worry?\u201d motto of Mad Magazine<\/em>\u2018s mascot, Alfred E. Neuman. While this derivation has been widely quoted on the Internet and elsewhere, the expression \u201cische ga bibble\u201d is not Yiddish and in fact contains no Yiddish words at all. However, there is a Yiddish expression, \u201cnisht gefidlt,\u201d meaning \u201cit doesn\u2019t matter to me,\u201d from which the term \u201cish kabibble\u201d may derive.<\/p>\n

Although Bogue\u2019s stage persona was that of a dumb person, he was a notable cornet player and was also business manager for the Kay Kyser Orchestra from 1931 to 1951. With the decline of the big bands, Bogue found a new career in real estate. By 1973, he was living in Hawaii, causing double-takes from prospective clients who saw his trademark haircut and read his business card: \u201cIsh Kabibble, Sales Manager\u201d.<\/p>\n

Personal life<\/strong><\/p>\n

Bogue married Janet Meade in 1932, and the couple had three children: Merwyn (known as Peter), born 1937; Pamela, 1940; and Janet, 1941, according to the book Ish Kabibble: The Autobiography of Merwyn Bogue (1989), co-written by Bogue and his sister, Gladys Bogue Reilly.<\/p>\n

Bogue died in 1994 in Joshua Tree, California of respiratory failure brought on by pulmonary disease and emphysema.<\/p>\n

Cultural legacy<\/p>\n

Kabibble\u2019s distinctive black hair in a bowl cut, similar to that used by Three Stooges member Moe Howard, is said to have been an inspiration for the hairstyle worn by Jim Carrey\u2019s character in Dumb and Dumber.<\/p>\n

The name \u201cIsh Kabbible\u201d was used for a hoax student supposedly enrolled at Princeton University in the 1950s.<\/p>\n

Around 1983, Ish Kabibble was the voice recording for the animated series Challenge of the GoBots. This predecessor to the more popular Transformers series also had humans allied with both sides of feuding mechanical extraterrestrials. One example was Soviet Russian scientist Dr. Anya Turgenova. Towards the end of the pilot episode, she muttered, \u201cIshkabibble!\u201d in boredom after hearing her friends\u2019 summoned to a U.S. federal government inquiry.<\/p>\n

In 1985, the character\u2019s name was used as a plot device on the animated series The Thirteen Ghosts of Scooby-Doo when Scooby and the gang, along with an animated spoof of Vincent Price, go in search of the Amulet of Ish Kabibble.<\/p>\n

In the TV show M*A*S*H, Alan Alda\u2019s character Hawkeye Pierce several times refers to Ish Kabibble. Once Pierce asks whom he and Trapper John should drink to\u2014\u201dMacArthur or Ish Kabibble?\u201d Another time he refers to Ish Kabibble and his All-Girl Orchestra and refers to him as part of a dream. In the TV show Green Acres, Sam Drucker sells \u201cIsh Kabibble\u201d kazoos. In the \u201cCousin Maude\u2019s Visit\u201d episode of All in the Family, Maude refers to how the name \u201cIsh Kabibble\u201d makes Archie Bunker laugh, in an automatic juvenile response.<\/p>\n

In the animated sitcom Sit Down Shut Up, Ish Kabbible is referred to several times in one episode.<\/p>\n

In the movie Photographing Fairies, Ish Kabbible is used a few times as a toast.
\nA children\u2019s book, \u201cIshkabibble!\u201d by Dorothy Crayder, with art by Susan Vaeth was published in 1975. The word in the book is a nonsense motivational term, and is revealed to translate as \u201cwho cares?\u201d as in the alleged etymology from above.<\/p>\n

The academic society known as The International Society for History, Philosophy, and Social Studies of Biology goes by the acronym ISHPSSB, but the abbreviation is commonly pronounced \u2033ishkabibble\u2033 at the suggestion of David Hull, as an homage to Bogue.<\/p>\n

Kay Kyser and Ish Kabibble are caricatured as Kaynine Kyser and Ish Kyoodle in the Warner Bros. Merrie Melodies cartoon \u201cHollywood Canine Canteen.\u201d Ish Kabibble recited a poem (\u201cRoses are red \/ Violets are blue \/ If skunks had a college \/ They\u2019d call it P.U.\u201d).<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Image result for the more you know gif\"<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u2026 is just what this blog needs on a Saturday morning. Who or what is Ish Kabibble, you ask? Precisely what I was wondering myself after my wife, as is her custom, wandered through the house in a cold-induced haze, muttering the mysterious incantation. I\u2019d heard it before and had the vague impression it was […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":92,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[197],"class_list":["post-115146","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-fun-stuff"],"yoast_head":"\nMore information on Ish Kabibble and his odd relationship with MAD Magazine than any normal person could want<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"... is just what this blog needs on a Saturday morning. Who or what is Ish Kabibble, you ask? 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