Music loving teenagers of the 1950s who listened to the radio grew up to remember that decade for early rock and roll and R&B, but their parents were listening to Mitch Miller, Lawrence Welk, and novelty songs like, “How Much is that Doggie in the Window:”
Singer, Patti Page, had a big hit on her hands with that song. It hit Number One on both the Billboard and Cash Box charts in 1953, and sold over two million copies.
It wasn’t, however, the only hit that its songwriter, Bob Merrill, wrote. Three years earlier, he penned the even more painful-to-hear (for today’s ears) “If I Knew You were Coming I’d have Baked a Cake:”
It’s not that Merrill wasn’t capable of more complete lyrics. As head writer at NBC and dialogue director at Columbia Pictures, he had tried to break into Tin Pan Alley, but they kept telling him his work was too complex. He took their advice in a big way and came up with lyrics that sounded like nursery rhymes, a song like, yes, “If I knew You were Coming…” If you can believe it, that song sold a million records.
In time, Merrill wrote (and music companies published) – more of his pop music, and today, people are more familiar with his work because of movies and iconic singers. Rosemary Clooney was a big star in her day (you’ve seen White Christmas?), but she became better known to modern audiences as George Clooney’s aunt. The Bob Merrill song she made into a big hit back in 1954, Mambo Italiano, was later part of the soundtrack of the 1988 film Married to the Mob, Mermaids from 1990, A Man of No Importance from 1994, Big Night in 1996, Mickey Blue Eyes from 1999, and 2004’s School for Seduction.
We’re pretty sure that if you’ve never heard any of the three songs we just shared, you’ll have heard the one shared below:
Merrill also wrote “Don’t Rain on My Parade,” “I’m the Greatest Star” and “Cornet Man” for the movie, “Funny Girl,” but thirty-four years after Barbra Streisand sang People in that movie, 78 year old Bob Merrill stepped out onto the driveway of his home in Los Angeles and shot himself to death. Various reports said he’d been suffering from cancer and severe gastroenteritis.
If Bob Merrill owned a dog, we haven’t found evidence of it, but his song, “How Much is that Doggie in the Window,” was credited with a spike of up to 8% for annual registrations with the American Kennel Club. Times change. In today’s world, the song came to be seen as synonymous with substandard breeders, and in 2009, Patti Page recorded a new version retitled Do You See That Doggie In The Shelter with new lyrics. Though her heart was in the right place and she saw the reworked tune as an anthem to homeless dogs, she donated the rights exclusively to the Humane Society of the United States, perhaps not realizing how little of the funds would actually go to help homeless dogs. National Purebred Dog Day urges its readers to help homeless dogs by donating to local shelters.
As for our image, we went with a Coton de Tulear since that is Barbra Streisand’s breed. This dog is Lolo, his photo taken by Nefertury and shared under a 4.0 license.