You can hear this at YouTube.


THE BRITISH PANTOMIME
As recorded by Mr Flotsam & Mr Jetsam, 1930.

Come, little English children, and sit on Flotsam and Jetsam’s knee.
And we’ll tell you why Cinderella wants to go back to Tennessee.

Well, you know that the English panto is a thoroughly British thing.
You can tell that’s so by the American songs that the English actors sing.

And yet it was to York and not New York that Dick Turpin rode Black Bess
And Bo Peep didn’t say: “My gol-durned sheep have given me the air, I guess.”

Little Jack Horner didn’t sit in the corner of some Chicago dive,
And Old King Cole was no prohibitionist, sure as you’re alive.

Cinderella’s coach and Aladdin's lamp weren’t made in the USA,
And the babes in the wood weren’t American kids, so the best authorities say.

The bells that made Dick Whittington turn never chimed in old New York,
And Robinson Crusoe never saw America, according to common folk.

So come, little English children and tell us, if you know,
Why the royalties on our panto songs whack(?) to America go.

We know that our British producers are thoroughly loyal chaps,
So they’ll relish our rhymes on their pantomimes,
Perhaps.