A fellow who signs his e-mails "youngblood" wants to know…
Any idea why a comedian is referred to as a "top banana?" Does it have anything to do with slipping on banana peels?
Nope. It dates back to an old burlesque sketch that was performed by just about every funny person who got onto those stages. You have three comedians on stage. One is standing there with two bananas. The other two enter and one says, "What do you have there?" Comic #1 says, "I have three bananas."
Comic #2 says, "I beg your pardon, kind sir, but as any fool can plainly see, you have but two bananas there." (I'm giving you the quickie version of this. Most acts would draw this all out for five or ten minutes.)
"No," says Comic #1. "I have three bananas here. Watch and I'll demonstrate." He holds up one banana and announces, "One banana have I." He then holds up the second banana and says, "Two bananas have I." He then concludes, "One banana and two bananas make three bananas!"
Comic #2 says, "Let me see those" and snatches them away from him. He then does the same math: "One banana have I…two bananas have I…one banana and two bananas makes three bananas. By gosh, he's right."
Then Comic #3 tries it and gets the same answer. They go back and forth for a while, all of them amazed that what the naked eye perceives as two bananas is actually three bananas, at least if you count them that way. Finally, Comic #2 takes one of the bananas, Comic #3 takes the other and they start to walk off stage, eating them. Comic #1 yells after them, "Hey, what about me?"
And they yell back at him, "You eat the third banana!" Blackout. End of skit.
This routine was done so often that folks began to refer to the lead comic as the First Banana, the secondary comic as the Second Banana and so on. Those were the terms used in vaudeville and burlesque. In the fifties, when Johnny Mercer sat down to write a song for the proposed musical starring Phil Silvers, he started on a tune to be called "First Banana," then decided that "Top Banana" made for a better lyric. So he changed it and it caught on…and that's how the term came to be.
I should have brought up the topic of this movie earlier in the week because Turner Classic Movies aired it on Wednesday night. But if you're dying to see it, fear not. They're running it again in early January. And if you want to see the title song, you can view a clip of it right now, right here.