Wet Water
01-30-2010, 11:17 AM
One of the episodes of "Happy Days" that stuck in my mind was the one where Richie and the gang encountered some Beatniks. One of them read a ridiculous poem: "Hey little boy, With your nose pressed up against the Bakery window, There ARE no jelly doughnuts for you today ... Only death!"
Well, I was watching an old "Peter Gunn" from 1958. Gunn is at a Beatnik club, and there's a guy reading a longer work whose words include (in order) "nose pressed up against the window", "no jelly doughnuts" and "only death".
Was "Happy Days" doing a knowing allusion to "Peter Gunn"? Has anybody ever noticed this before?
I just did a little internet sleuthing, and it seems that the No Jellydoughnuts poem may be the work of a "beat" named Joe Gould, who liked to compose ridiculous poems to mock the serious people attending poetry readings.
I wonder if this is the first time any of this has been pointed out.
Well, I was watching an old "Peter Gunn" from 1958. Gunn is at a Beatnik club, and there's a guy reading a longer work whose words include (in order) "nose pressed up against the window", "no jelly doughnuts" and "only death".
Was "Happy Days" doing a knowing allusion to "Peter Gunn"? Has anybody ever noticed this before?
I just did a little internet sleuthing, and it seems that the No Jellydoughnuts poem may be the work of a "beat" named Joe Gould, who liked to compose ridiculous poems to mock the serious people attending poetry readings.
I wonder if this is the first time any of this has been pointed out.