Last summer when I was performing at fairs in Montana and Wyoming, I got to talk to a lot of high school students on the fairgrounds. In one city, some high schoolers told me saying how much they loved show biz and wanted to get into it and that during the year a few of them had worked on a classic number the Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy Of Company B for a talent show.
Later this year, the song came up again — again mentioned by a high schooler.
In show biz, there are certain vintage bits that take on a life of their own and endure way behind the original performance and even decades after the original performers have left this earth. The Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy Of Company B was a World War II production number performed by the popular Andrews Sisters singing act in the 1941 Abbott and Costello film, “Buck Privates.” Here’s the original bit:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2pfCFU3Mqww&feature=related
It became a HUGE hit for the Greatest Generation — and the sisters performed it often during the war:
Fast forward to the end of the century and early 21st century and the most popular updated version was a HUGE show stopper for Bette Midler in her stage show and the filmed version of it (put your volume down since this is much louder):
So why do some high schoolers know about it? More than 60 years later, it still has the aura of show stopper material — the perfect vehicle for talented people who are willing to work hard, perform and shine. And when young (or even veteran) entertainers can pull off a show stopper, it helps them “grow” and climb new artistic heights.
(FOOTNOTE: WWII was before my time — it was my father’s generation. But I’m a perpetual student of show biz and comedy history and love to view entertainers with talent and pizazz, no matter when their bits were filmed or taped.)
UPDATE: A comment posted by a reader below made me decide to post this as further proof of what I say in this post. Just go to You Tube and you’ll see some examples of young people performing this song (most likely the influence was Bette Midler’s version which was influenced by the WWII Andrews Sisters version) in a competition (they placed 2nd in a regional competition):
FOOTNOTE: Sometimes bits of show business “business” or properties take on new lives of their own. Think of Star Trek, which wasn’t a smash success during its initial run, got a new life in revivals, TV and movie sequels, petered out and is now being relaunched in what critics believe will be a brand new, hipper, faster franchise. Think of Laurel and Hardy’s James Finlayson’s “DOH!” which Homer Simpson used. Think of Family Guy, which died on cable, took on a new life on DVDs returned and is a smash. Think of guitar players who smash guitars which some contend dates back to early 50s star Johnny Ray banging on his piano — and young girls going crazy over his songs as he hit emotional notes…which Elvis did later with mid-fifties teenage girls going ever more wild.
In this case, this is a piece of musical material where the stagecraft is almost built into it and talented performers can take it and run with it. Will it still be performed 40 years from now in competitions? Most likely not..but who knows. No matter: it has gone way beyond it’s original 1941 debut in the middle of a comedy team film.
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.