Mr Cellophane

My friend Dan (not danh) told me a story about his youth…

When he was young, like in elementary school, a friend of his asked him to help do a song with him for a contest. They wrote a bunch of lyrics for an existing melody. This is in Nashville, so when they won some local award, it was recorded and they performed it in front of a bunch of people.

The song itself was called “Mr Cellophane,” with the theme “people look right through me.” It was about how no one pays attention to the narrator and he may as well be invisible. Pretty innovative for little kids, huh?

Years later, Dan’s friend’s mom hears about a song on YouTube called… Mr Cellophane. Outraged, she tells Dan’s mom about it, scandalized that someone copied their children’s idea. However… Dan’s mom points out that since it’s the Muppets, it’s likely that Dan’s friend was inspired by the thing he saw on TV.

Oops.

So I found it on YouTube. “Mr Cellophane” is from the musical “Chicago,” which originally played Broadway in 1975. When Ben Vereen sings it, the song becomes about race (shades of Invisible Man).

But initially, it seemed to me a song called Mr Cellophane would be about a serial killer. The first verse would be about how no one pays attention to him, including a girl love-interest the song introduces. The chorus is about how he’s called Mr Cellophane; because he’s invisible.

Then the next verse would be about how he stalks the girl, and about how he uses cellophane to suffocate her, and how he feels as he watches her dying through the clear plastic.

The next verse is about killing a ton more people with cellophane. A little imagery about cellophane here.

Then the last verse is about how he goes home to his empty apartment and kills himself with cellophane.

This is random but originally this came up through another Muppet Show connection, the song “You’re the Top.” When Kermit and Ethel Merman performed it in episode 122 of The Muppet Show, they squabble a bit about whether being called “The Colleseum” is a compliment.

I heard a Ginny Sims recording of it that passed into the public domain recently. Originally appearing in 1934’s “Anything Goes,” the song lists a bunch of things that at the time were awesome.

And one of them is cellophane! There we go.