Talk:Mah Nà Mah Nà

message: This section is getting cluttered up...WP:NOT. I'm trimming it down a bit. --Stlemur 13:37, 18 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Cultural References

message: That hairy "Mah na mah na" character had a sort of "come-back" in 2002!
I've seen him in "Bert & Ernie's Word Play" and I wonder whether he really has a name. Does anyone know that? -andy 80.129.103.60 00:40, 3 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: IMDB lists 'Mahna Mahna' as one of the characters Jim Henson played. (Jk80 23:34, 4 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Does this "guy" have a name?

message: ●The article title was apparently supposed to be the title that the song debuted under, in order to respect the author's creation AND to make the first entry in the chronology match up with the title.  I was surprised to discover that the original published title was not "Mah Na Mah Na" but "Mah Nà Mah Nà".  As long as the article is titled "Mah Na Mah Na", the introductory paragraph contradicts by introducing "Mah Nà Mah Nà" as the name.  Anyone seeing this disparity should be wondering whether the article should be moved to "Mah Nà Mah Nà" (which is currently a redirect page). Whiner01 18:37, 4 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Done deal.  Stlemur moved the page.  I jumped on the 20 redirect pages, as they all had become double redirects.  (Double-redirects are advisable to fix, so i'll sign my 'name' to it.) Whiner01 06:36, 8 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Time to move?

message: Think about "Mah Nà Mah Nà" makes me recall another song that has some similarities:  "How Do You Do?" by Mouth and MacNeal.  It similarly uses alternating male and female vocals (but they use similar melodies and have alternating instrumental accompaniment styles).  "How Do You Do?" has a lot of real words, but it incorporates some nonsense words, which also happen to be similar:  "nananana"... or "nana nana" or "na na na na".  (A similar spelling problem too.)  "How Do You Do?" doesn't include improvisational interpolations like "Mah Nà Mah Nà".  Just wondering if they are linked by inspiration or just their coincidental similarities.  Whiner01 19:12, 4 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: "How Do You Do?"

message: The page currently has a link to an of MP3 of the Muppets version of the song.  The site it is contained on is not an official Muppets site, and the song should still be under copyright.  This link must be removed unless someone can ascertain that the copyright holder has either given permission for the song to be used in that way or released it into the public domain.  --LostLeviathan 00:35, 28 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  External links and copyright 

message: It's simply not a relevant link for the article. We can't link to everything that sounds vaguely like "Mah Nà Mah Nà". --Stlemur 20:33, 19 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: In an article entirely devoted to nonsensical lyrics in various spellings, "we" can link to a real town, and be it only to demonstrate that the song is not about the existing place. --Matthead 00:30, 20 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: But the various spellings are all ones used in the topic of the article. The song lyrics are also not Panama, Ghana, banana, Fatima, or Orange Shasta--no reason to link to what something isn't. Do people actually think the song is about Bahrain, or are we straying into the realm of straw men and FUD? DMacks 00:44, 20 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[Manama]] 

message: Okay, I've looked at the material under the "External links", & am convinced that the claim this song first appeared in a soft-core porn film can be verified, yet I'm still unconvinced that this was played under a lesbian BDSM scene. I have three reasons for this:
# This sounds too much like urban folklore;
# No one appears to have actually viewed this movie in the last 30 years, & the film is currently unobtainable in any form (although numerous copies of the soundtrack exist); &
# This is not music I would normally associate with whips & chains, leather & corsets, stilleto heels & all of the other things to be found in :Category:BDSM. 
This last point is the one that makes me the most skeptical. Imagine that you are watching a movie of this genre, & one woman sternly pronounces to the other, "You have been a bad slave. You must be punished!" And the next thing we hear is:
:Mahna mahna, doo dee badoobah, mahna mahna, doo deebee doo ...
wouldn't your immediate response be to laugh? Or am I the only one for whom this juxtiposition of music with action ruins something best described by Coleridge's phrase, the "willing suspension of disbelief"? Until we can find a source that says the tune was used precisely in this way in the film (or that a specific person who claims to have seen this film says it was used this way), I think it would be best to omit this detail. -- llywrch 03:58, 21 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I don't know why the other editor reverted your changes, but I made a copy edit to improve the fluency. The passage might benefit from still some more work. -- llywrch 23:55, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

text: No longer available directly at that link either as of June 2021. The page is available at the Wayback Machine, but requires Flash Player so the video is no longer viewable there in modern browsers (even assuming the video data is also still there). General Ization Talk   17:53, 3 June 2021 (UTC)
thread_title:  The song & women (ahem) engaged in love 

message: It says in the article that "lullaby of Birdland" is one of the songs that are quoted in Mah Na Mah Na. While this is true for the muppets version, it does not occur in the original.  —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 129.240.176.233 (talk • contribs) .
The same thing goes for Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy, or at least I cannot find a trace of it. The original version interpolates exactly three tunes. The first two are "Midsommarvaka" and "Santa Lucia", but I am not sure as to what the third one is. It doesn't sound as either of the two mentioned songs. And there are no "others". --Jonas
The original recording has four "verses" each ending with a quote from a different song.  An instrumental outro follows.  The hit single was edited from this, using only the first three verses and then repeats them and ends with a fade out, which gave the song a longer running time.  The fourth quote is therefore not heard in the hit single, but is the Army bugle call " Assembly". 04:06, 24 June 2019 (UTC)
thread_title:  no lullaby of birdland in the original 

message: On Jan. 24  Stlemur deleted a number of references to other media on the grounds they were not notable.  Wikipedia notability guidelines specifically state they refer to the existence of entire articles, not to the content of articles.  As such, I am restoring the previously deleted information.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by PianOmega47 (talk • contribs) 18:15, 12 March 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: You are technically correct, the concept defined by WP:N only deals with the appropriateness of topics.  However, the signifigance of references is explicitly covered by WP:HTRIV. -Verdatum (talk) 18:37, 12 March 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Notability of references in other media 

message: I'm happy to see there are a lot of redirects here with different titles phonetically - it won't do any harm and it will be VERY helpful to even one person who can't find the exact title! Well done :) Drum guy (talk) 22:34, 13 March 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Glad to see many redirects here 

message: BN biscuits did an advertising campaign here in Britain (and possibly elsewhere) using the song with the lyrics changed to 'BN, BN' 'Doo doooo do dodo'... etc. For my generation, this is actually the original and often only source of familiarity with the song (speaking anecdotally, almost everyone I know remembers the ads). Wondered if it warranted a mention.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.24.131.155 (talk) 11:42, 24 July 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  BN biscuits 

message: some people have noted this town's name fits the song structure. If it becomes a notable internet meme, we should reference it.75.61.142.201 (talk) 01:50, 7 May 2011 (UTC)
thread_title: Abbottabad

message: The article makes a rather dubious statement:  "However, the hook, or chorus, could be interpreted as the Habiru word "Manna", meaning "What is it?""   Can the author demonstrate that the songwriter intended the Ma Na Ma Na to be interpreted as a Habiru word?  If not, get rid of this ridiculous statement.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 95.148.119.85 (talk) 22:46, 20 June 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: Seems that someone was trying to connect it with the Biblical "manna from heaven".  It's "original research" without a source... AnonMoos (talk) 09:27, 21 June 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  Spurious link to "Habiru word" 

message: The article says "Aside from its notoriety as the primary silent comedy sketch scene music for The Benny Hill Show...". I've added a citation needed because I don't believe the assertion to be true. The music referred to in that context was actually Yakety Sax. 83.104.249.240 (talk) 23:39, 20 January 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  Use in ''The Benny Hill Show'' 

message: I deleted the unsourced (and misplaced) sentence "It was originally taken from the French musical, 'Me Noi Me Noi' (not me not me)." I don't know whether it was vandalism or speculation. Is "noi" even a French word? Even "ne moi" doesn't seem like it's correct. KCinDC (talk) 03:53, 28 November 2018 (UTC)
replies: text: The content has repeatedly been introduced by  without references. Since at least 2013, they have added it no fewer than four times.. At this point, I would consider the content original research, which violates Wikipedia policy, and per WP:ONUS, when unsourced content is challenged and removed, the burden is on the person resubmitting it to find adequate sources to support the content, should they resubmit it. If the content is resubmitted without a reference, I would absolutely consider that disruptive. Cyphoidbomb (talk) 01:08, 3 January 2020 (UTC)
thread_title:  Removed sentence about French musical 

message: This song was also used in an episode of the UK version of the Office where david Brent and various other characters spontaneously sang it before the opening credits.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 164.39.215.34 (talk) 15:48, 5 December 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  The Office 

message: In a supermarket just now, I heard a soul song (~Seventies) playing and noticed that one could sing "Mahna Mahna" along with it.  Listening a bit more closely, I heard the "du du" part!  Knowing nothing of the history of "Mah Nà Mah Nà" I came here to see if maybe it was a parody of a soul song; the timing is about right.  (I was going to add it to my list of works that came to my attention long after I was familiar with a parody.)  Didn't spot anything in the article that fits.  Does someone know what song I mean?  The refrain's last line is something like "All I need is all your love." —Tamfang (talk) 19:31, 18 December 2019 (UTC)
thread_title:  soul song? 

message: This 2016 French TV series features the song "Mah Nà Mah Nà."  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 122.3.27.247 (talk) 07:39, 31 January 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  ''Loin de chez nous''