I had a good laugh when I found this cartoon. Because a) haha, funny, b) ooooooh, fruitbats!¹, and c) haha, Carmen Miranda hat!
And then I thought, wait, what do I really know about Carmen, anyway?
Famous for promoting Brazil all over the world, she was a Broadway star, the highest paid artist in Hollywood and the highest paid woman in the USA.
—Wikipedia
And apparently, she more or less died on Durante's show. I never knew.
So then I put on the Durante/Bankhead duet, If the world were full of Durantes. Tallulah's always fun, of course (and it certainly would have made for interesting watching, had she landed the role of Scarlett in Gone with the Wind), and of course, with her starring in Dark Victory, there's a Batmanreference right there. And then more blatantly, she wasn't only on I love Lucy, she also was on the silly Adam West Batman. Which of course brings us right back to Carmen Miranda, not just because she also was on I love Lucy, but because she also has a Bat connection — a fruitbat hat connection. I for one have always always had this scene in the back of my head where Poison Ivy refers to her love-child with Batman as her little fruitbat. Aw, that'd be so sweet! Ahem.
But of course, it doesn't stop there. Tallulah also had a smashing duet — How could you believe me?, preferable to Powell/Astaire's version thanks to its funny twist — with Danny Kaye of Court Jester fame (the flagon with the dragon, the chalice from the palace, and all that, you know the one), as well as my personal favourite, Merry Andrew. Salud!
¹ Don't tell me fruitbats aren't the sweetest things around! Me, I've always had half a heart to adopt Cleobatra.
So am I the Queen of Willful Connections, OR WHAT? : )
What can I say, ENFP, holistic thinker. :) The thing is, there's just no stars like that anymore. The '30s and '40s — Bankhead. Bacall. Hepburn. Tierney and Lamarr, if you must. — well, there's nothing I can say, is there? Thank you, and good night.
