I never met Linda Lavin even though I was involved briefly with her show, Alice. I also don't think I ever saw her perform on the stage which, gauging from the rave reviews she routinely got, was obviously my loss. In case you haven't heard, the world lost this talented lady the other day.
One of the first things she did on stages in New York was the 1966 off-Broadway production of The MAD Show, based on guess-what-magazine. In it, she introduced this song, "The Boy From…" which was kind of a sideways parody of what was then a recent hit, "The Girl From Ipanema."
The music from the show was written by Mary Rodgers, daughter of Richard, and the lyrics for just this one number were credited to "Esteban Rio Nido," whose name is in quotes because that was a pseudonym for Stephen Sondheim. The joke in the song — which I didn't get when I first heard it at age fourteen — is that the lady singing it is unaware that the boy from Tacarembo la Tumba del Fuego Santa Malipas Zacatecas la Junta del Sol y Cruz is gay and is moving to Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch to be with his boy friend. The latter location is a real village in Wales, whereas the first location is a name made up by Mr. Sondheim.
Please forgive whatever the unhyphenated length of the latter place name does to whatever screen or device you're using at the moment.
Here is Ms. Lavin performing the number — probably the exact same mostly-deadpan way she sang it Off-Broadway — on The Mike Douglas Show with Mike in the background…