From the Salmon

So, Muppet fans… You know the song “Mahna Mahna”?

If you do, you’re probably already bobbing your head and singing “do doo do do do.” If you don’t, you can check out the original Muppets bit here.

I always figured that song was straight out of the twistedly brilliant mind of Jim Henson. Yesterday, I discovered that I was wrong.

It turns out that the song was written in the late 1960s by Italian soundtrack composter Piero Umiliani, who recorded it as “Mah Na Mah Na.” It appeared on the soundtrack to Svezia, Inferno e Paradiso, which was, believe it or not, an X-rated documentary about sexual activity in Sweden. In fact, the film was banned in Sweden for its depictions of lesbian nightclubs, nudity and wife-swapping.

As the Muppets themselves might ask, ”Can you picture that?”

I don’t know how it ended up in a Muppets sketch.

But I’m sure glad it did.

Bizarre Interweb Find of the Day: A mash-up of the Muppets’ “Mahna Mahana” and Marc Cohn’s “Walking in Memphis” (near the bottom of this site)