higamus hogamus hatlemus

(if you don't understand the reference in the title, read this link first, then come back.)

Last night I dreamed up a bit of doggerel.

Picture a Busby Berkeley-produced black-and-white filmed sketch comedy show (like a Saturday Night Live, except that it's funny). The star of the show is a blond flapper girl, who I'll call Nadine. She's fresh out of journalism school, and ready to make her mark in the big city. Picture a 22-yr-old Vivian Vance with a dash of Lily Tomlin's Ernestine attitude. She's performing the news in a sort of Operaman role, only hunt-and-pecking behind an old round-buttoned manual typewriter.

As the film begins, the orchestra is playing Nadine's theme song, a lively staccato cha-cha-cha piece. Nadine hits a key for every note and the orchestra plays a bell every time the typewriter is returned. The song plays for a few measures waiting for the applause to end. After the crowd quiets down, without breaking rhythm or looking up from the keys, Nadine starts reading/singing the news items. Each item is a rhyming couplet, with each line ending with the cha-cha-cha ...ding! rhythm.

The first news item is apparently about a playwright who made a spectacular comeback from a notoriously dismal failure:

"Francis Foley is forgiven for that other flop. (...ding!)
He wrote a great new play and it came out on top. (...ding!)"

And the crowd thought it was hilarious...