Football, football, it's a gentle game

The Wizard of Oz was quickly adapted for the stage after its publication at the turn of the last century. The audience loved its special effects: The Realistic Cyclone! The Gorgeous Poppy Field! The Glittering Snow Scene! And they loved the story, and the pageantry. (Some differences: for instance, instead of Toto, there was Imogene the cow, played by a guy in a suit. The jaws could move!)

But in particular they loved the Tin Woodman and the Scarecrow, played by the vaudeville team of Montgomery and Stone. Stone was the man who came up with the Scarecrow's floppy, rubber-legged walk. You can picture in your mind's eye how the comedy duo must have worked.

Performances were tweaked as the show went on. And in the 1905 season, a hot topic was the dangerous new game of football. Of course the Tin Woodman and the Scarecrow needed to do a skit on it. From Mark Evan Swartz's Oz Before the Rainbow:

Montgomery and Stone's parody of the game's violence involved stunts so rough that doctors were kept on hand at every performance. [I smell publicity gimmick. -- CY] Costumed in football gear, the pair clowned around with a football as they sang:

Just bring along the ambulance
And call the Red Cross nurse,
Then ring the undertaker up and make him bring a hearse;
Have all the surgeons ready there,
For they'll have work today,
Oh, can't you see the football teams,
Are lining up to play?

Football, Football,
That's the game for me,
Break his hip, hip! hip hurrah,
Kick him in the knee.
Sock him on the five yard line,
We must have 'em lame,
Football, Football,
It's a gentle game.

The comedy team's second new duet was "Marching through Port Arthur."

I don't have the lyrics for that.

Comments

[Jim Parish]

I seem to recall that football of that era was so violent that the President took a hand, forcing rules changes to tone things down.

Yes. Theodore Roosevelt thought it was too violent.