Lyr Req: Little Bunny Foo Foo

Subject: Little Bunny Foo Foo
From: GUEST,ajgoodkids
Date: 27 Mar 00 - 04:58 PM

Five year olds are a kick. (We have two.) Who, what, where, and most importantly, lyrics? (My kids tell me it's an Easter song.)

Little Bunny Foo Foo, Hopping through the forest, Picking up the field mice, Hitting them on the head.

Subject: Lyr Add: LITTLE BUNNY FOO-FOO
From: Caitrin
Date: 27 Mar 00 - 05:10 PM

Little bunny foo-foo,
hopping through the forest
Scooping up the field mice,
and bopping them on the head.

Then down came the Good Fairy, and she said:
Little Bunny Foo-Foo,
I don't wanna see you
Scooping up the field mice,
and bopping them on the head.
I'll give you three chances,
And if you don't behave,
I'll turn you into a Goon!
Repeat first nine lines
I'll give you two more chances,
And if you still don't behave,
I'll turn you into a goon!
Repeat first nine lines
I'll give you one more chance,
And if you still don't behave,
I'll turn you into a goon!
Repeat first nine lines
I gave you three chances,
And you still didn't behave...
POOF! You're a goon!
^^^

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Little Bunny Foo Foo
From: ceitagh
Date: 27 Mar 00 - 05:13 PM

the moral of the story: hare today, goon tomorrow.

ceit

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Little Bunny Foo Foo
From: Sorcha
Date: 27 Mar 00 - 05:21 PM

I learned it with the "and doooowwwwn came the good fairy" part spoken instead of sung. Don't forget hand movements---------Peace sign moving up and down in front of you for "little bunny hopping", "scoop up" the field mice, put em in the other hand, and "bop" em on the head. The the spoken part, with both hands wriggling fingers floating down,,,,,,etc.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Little Bunny Foo Foo
From: campfire
Date: 27 Mar 00 - 05:26 PM

It's a long story, but "Foo Foo" ended up being my nickname through most of Junior High School, because of this song. Fortunately it was a long time ago...

campfire

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Little Bunny Foo Foo
From: ajgoodkids
Date: 27 Mar 00 - 05:32 PM

Caitrin, thanks much. It's alive and well ... those are exactly the lyrics my kids sing!

Does anyone know who, where, when?

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Little Bunny Foo Foo
From: Sorcha
Date: 27 Mar 00 - 05:39 PM

a nonny mouse, forever ago.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Little Bunny Foo Foo
From: Bradypus
Date: 27 Mar 00 - 05:42 PM

It's alive and changing - instead of 'I don't want to see you', one of my daughters came back from Brownies with 'I don't like your attitude'.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Little Bunny Foo Foo
From: Joe Offer
Date: 27 Mar 00 - 05:55 PM

For a little more colorful presentation of the lyrics, click here.

I like to think of myself as a feminist, but I have to confess that when it comes to camp songs, I semi-consciously engage in sexual stereotyping. If I first heard a camp song from a woman, I'm not likely to add that song to my repertoire (and "Bunny Foo-Foo" is one of those songs). I think it has something to do with my slightly-younger sister bringing home songs from Girl Scout camp and singing them over and over again, just to bug me. Ever since, it's been hard for me to make a girls' camp song my own.
My sister Mudcatters, I hope you will forgive me for this transgression, horrible though it may be. Blame it on my little sister. I dearly love her, but there are times when she can be almost as obnoxious as her older brother.
-Joe Offer, the older brother-

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Little Bunny Foo Foo
From: ajgoodkids
Date: 27 Mar 00 - 05:56 PM

Is this a labor movement song perchance?

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Little Bunny Foo Foo
From: katlaughing
Date: 27 Mar 00 - 06:02 PM

The version my kids learned about 20 years ago, was like Sorcha said with the good fairy coming down and giving him 3, then 2, then 1 more chnace, BUT without a clue as to what would happen to him if he didn't stop. When the last chance it up, she says, "Poof, you're a field mouse!" I always thought of that as a kind of instant karma/cosmic retribution, so....watch out Joe, you might become a younger sister Girl Scout next time round!

katlaughing

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Little Bunny Foo Foo
From: Chocolate Pi
Date: 27 Mar 00 - 06:08 PM

yeah, I learned the bunny becoming a field mouse version too, and the fairy always said, "Little Bunny Foo Foo, I don't like your attitude." The field mice were often blipped on the head instead of bopped; possibly a tenuous connection to the A.A. Milne poem about Sir Brian who blipped the villagers.

Chocolate Pi (traumatized by chem lecture this morning where quantum variables had different meanings on different blackboards)

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Little Bunny Foo Foo
From: ajgoodkids
Date: 27 Mar 00 - 06:22 PM

Very interesting. This sounds like a labor movement song. Does anybody know any history on this one?

Also interesting is this and Down By The Station having the same tune. I assume Down By the Station came first.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Little Bunny Foo Foo
From: Sorcha
Date: 27 Mar 00 - 06:31 PM

Only the Girl Scout Devil knows for sure, and She ain't telling!

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Little Bunny Foo Foo
From: Caitrin
Date: 27 Mar 00 - 08:27 PM

I'm willing to forgive Girl Scouts almost anything, because they make really good cookies. That's worth plenty, in my book.
I can't believe I forgot the "Hare today, GOon tomorrow" part! That's a serious oversight!
I always heard the DOoooooowwwwwnnn came the good fairy part spoken, too.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Little Bunny Foo Foo
From: Susan of DT
Date: 27 Mar 00 - 08:35 PM

It's in the DT as [Little Rabbit Fufu]. Or search on [hare today]. Yes, I was once a Girl Scout, so a number of their songs are in the DT.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Little Bunny Foo Foo
From: M. Ted (inactive)
Date: 28 Mar 00 - 12:52 AM

We used to sing that song with the kids in nursery school thirty years ago (I didn't realize it was that long ago, till just this second--I thought, yeah, twenty, then I did the math!!!) No one knew where it came from then--though our general sense was that it wasn't that old(we were only 18-20, and none of us had known it as children--

It seems odd that, peculiar as the lyrics are, they should have been passed down through at least one and a half generations, and circulated god knows how far, with very little alteration--

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Little Bunny Foo Foo
From: GUEST,wavestar
Date: 28 Mar 00 - 12:54 AM

I always sang it with Doooooowwwwnnn came the good fairy, too... the other very important thing is that the first verse starts out at a normal tempo, and it gets faster and faster as the verses go on.. the more you do it the faster you get!

-J

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Little Bunny Foo Foo
From: ajgoodkids
Date: 28 Mar 00 - 10:14 AM

Thanks for the lyrics help, everyone. I'm going to restart this thread as a history info request.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Little Bunny Foo Foo
From: GUEST,Roger the skiffler
Date: 28 Mar 00 - 10:32 AM

Joebro, sorry you were so traumatized when you were younger. I treasure what my local girl guides (girl scouts) taught me when I was a youngster(musically that is!). I'm sure the NYCFTTS can come up with a 12-step program to help you, ring Dr 'Spaw today. It's the least we can do after you taught us HTML.
RtS

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Little Bunny Foo Foo
From: northfolk/al cholger
Date: 28 Mar 00 - 12:08 PM

That was a blast from the past...my sons, now grown brought that song home from Co-op nursery school...shortly after that, at a childrens concert at the Ark in Ann Arbor, I recall Utah Phillips doing this song...the kids were ecstatic, a song they knew!

RE: the suggestion that this may be a labor history song, I do not recall Utah delivering any polemic on the meaning or history of the song.

I associate "goon" with other images, Alice the Goon, a cartoon character, as well as "the Goons and the ginks, and the Company finks..."or "goon squads".

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Little Bunny Foo Foo
From: GUEST
Date: 28 Mar 00 - 12:51 PM

When I was in Girl Scouts and my brother was in Boy Scouts I tried to go with my brother on nearly every trip that was allowed - I just liked the trips that were planned by the Boy Scouts more than anything MY troop ever did.
I must say Joe, though his trips were better, nearly every single song that was sung at my Scout trips, were also sung at my brothers.

There are just some things everyone does at camp.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Little Bunny Foo Foo
From: Joe Offer
Date: 28 Mar 00 - 01:35 PM

...well, I gotta say that the Girl Scout songbooks are a whole lot better than the skimpy Boy Scout and Cub Scout songbooks. I used to get in trouble with the Boy Scout professionals, who wanted me to teach only "songs from the songbook" in leader workshops. I finally gave up.
I bought a number of current Girl Scout songbooks a couple of weeks ago, and they're wonderful collections of songs.
But still, I ask you, would you want to admit to liking songs you heard from your younger sister who always acted like she thought she was smarter than you? (and now, in my later years, I have to admit that she is smarter than me; and she's probably my all-time favorite person in the world. She sings nicely, too.)
-Joe Offer-

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Little Bunny Foo Foo
From: GUEST,Katy
Date: 28 Mar 00 - 05:28 PM

When I learnt this one it was:
And down came Margaret Thatcher, and she said
"Little Rabbit Foo-Foo
I don't like your attitude
Scooping up the field mice and bashing them on the head" ..etc etc

To be accompanied by much wagging of forefinger and benevolent dictator face. Though how Mrs T ever became the equivalent of the Good Fairy I'll never know! And there certainly wouldn't have been a Labour connection there!

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Little Bunny Foo Foo
From: GUEST,Anthony
Date: 29 Mar 00 - 05:05 PM

Along these same GSA lines, what were the rest of the words to that immortal ditty that went:

"Oh my goodness, oh my soul, there goes Alice down the hole!"

I was a Boy Scout myself, and some of our favorites were:

Salvation Army (put a nickel in the drum -- save another drunken bum, put a nickel in the drum and save yourself)

I've Got Sixpence

Bill Grogan's Goat

I Wear My Pink Pajamas (TTTO Battle hymn of the Republic)

Good Morning, Mr. Zip-Zip-Zip!

and the ever-popular: Way Up In the Sky the Birdies They Fly

Lyrics available on request (you'll be sorry).

Tony

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Little Bunny Foo Foo
From: Felisi 52'
Date: 29 Mar 00 - 10:32 PM

We also sang Bunny Foo Foo but some of our favorite Scout songs were:

• Black Socks
• Ol' Lady Leary
• Great Green Globs (an interesting one)
• As A Hearse Rolls By (a very interesting one)
• Home On The Range (all three verses)

And so manny more, but those are the ones I remember best.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Little Bunny Foo Foo
From: Caitrin
Date: 29 Mar 00 - 10:41 PM

I remember "Black Socks," and "Way Up Yonder (in the frozen North)" and "The LIttle Green Frog (oom-Ah!)" and "Mrs. O'Leary." Not exactly musical brilliance, but they're lots of fun.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Little Bunny Foo Foo
From: ceitagh
Date: 29 Mar 00 - 10:51 PM

I remember black socks....and my brothers used to sing 'great green globs of grimy greasy gopher guts..' what others....oh yes, and Boom Boom Ain't it Great to be Crazy. My favorite was the Titanic song.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Little Bunny Foo Foo
From: ajgoodkids
Date: 30 Mar 00 - 10:34 AM

We recently picked up "Black Socks" from a Bill Harley tape. As round as "Row, Row, Row Your Boat" and more fun.

Are any of you familiar with Bill Harley's "Come on Out and Play" tape? It is a MUST GET for anyone with story-loving kids or grandkids.

Subject: Lyr Add: LITTLE BUNNY FOO-FOO
From: GUEST,C Dye
Date: 17 Aug 00 - 09:23 PM

This version of bunny fufu wasn't so much sung as overdramatised:
MEAN OLD RABBIT
(sweetly)Every day the field mouse family went tripsy traipsy over the hills and through the valleys
(menacingly)High on the hill was a mean old RABBIT!
Blrblrblrblrblrbl BLEAH! (make hideous mean rabbit face with tongue sticking out)
And he said "I'm gonna take a little mousie
and beat-him-on-the-head-til-he's-dead."(very fast)
So he took a little mousie and he
beat-him-on-the-head-till-he's-dead.
(accompanied by snatch motion and pounding one closed fist on top of the other)
(Waft hands broadly) Down came the faaaairy,
and she said, "Mean old rabbit!"(shaking a finger at him)
"I'm only going to tell you this three times.
You leave those field mice alone, or I'll turn you into a goon!"


(not quite as cheerfully) So the next day
the field mice family went tripsy traipsy over the hills and through the valleys.
(same as above till the fairy says:)
"Mean old rabbit!
I told you once,
and I'm only gonna tell you TWO MORE Times,
You leave those field mice alone,
Or I'll turn you into a goon."

(Third day follows pattern, with mice getting less and less nonchalant, and fairy saying "I told you once, and I told you twice, and I'm only gonna tell you ONE more time")

So the next day the field mice family went tripsy
(ducking nervously between words)
traipsy...overthehills...and through the valleys.
High on the hill was a Mean Old RAbbit!
Blrblrblrblrlble BLEAH! (worst face yet!)
And he said "I'm gonna take a little mousie
and beathimontheheadtilhe'sdead,"
So he took a little mousie
and beathimontheheadtilhe'sdead."
Down came the faaaairy, and HE said (droop wrist and then catch yourself straighten it up again and go on.)
"Mean old Rabbit!
I told you once! And I told you twice!
And I told you THREE times to leave those field mice alone
and you didn't listen.
So I'm going to turn you into a goon.
(pause)
So she turned him into a goon.
And the moral of this story is:
Hare today, Goooon tomorrow.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Little Bunny Foo Foo
From: Lepus Rex
Date: 17 Aug 00 - 11:39 PM

Foo Foo was FRAMED!

---Lepus Rex

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Little Bunny Foo Foo
From: rabbitrunning
Date: 17 Aug 00 - 11:48 PM

When I learned "Little Bunny Foo Foo" it was gophers and not field mice. The field mice were in the Mean Old Rabbit version.

Of course, we frequently followed "Bunny Foo Foo" with "Greasy Grimy Gopher Guts" anyway...

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Little Bunny Foo Foo
From: GUEST,Sheila
Date: 18 Aug 00 - 01:57 PM

When the rabbit is turned into a goon, at the end, you make a circle of thumb and forefinger, 3 remaining fingers sticking up, then turn upside down, tuck extended fingers under jawbone and stretch up to circle eyes. This is hard for some children, so they can make any kind of mask they wish. Lots of fun.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Little Bunny Foo Foo
From: Bernard
Date: 18 Aug 00 - 02:19 PM

I bet the originator of the song never dreamed it would eventually attract such interest...

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Little Bunny Foo Foo
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 18 Aug 00 - 03:58 PM

Bet they never dreamed it would become a picture book either!!! Honest, available in the UK as a children's picture book, the evil Rabbit Foo Foo beats up field mice, wiggly worms, gnomes and tigers before getting his comeuppance from a very fat granny fairy.....

LTS

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Little Bunny Foo Foo
From: rabbitrunning
Date: 18 Aug 00 - 11:26 PM

I'm trying to manage the "goon" mask with the fingers, and I think I recognize it. Isn't that the "Junior Birdman" mask?

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Little Bunny Foo Foo
From: GUEST,U§§ ferryboat (~¿~)
Date: 19 Aug 00 - 02:18 AM

ah, I love camp songs, although I think I sang Little Bunny Foo Foo most when our troop went and sang at the nursing home. I love the songs "Chocolete chip cookies" "pink pagamas" "oom plucka plucka" "the bear went over the mountain" "bear in tennis shoes" "I'm bringing home a baby bumble bee" I could go on forever :P, but I think I should go to bed instead.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Little Bunny Foo Foo
From: Peter T.
Date: 19 Aug 00 - 02:51 PM

Not only is the goon face the Junior Birdman mask, but it is also the source for the SECRET MUDCAT GREETING!!!!!

yours, Peter T.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Little Bunny Foo Foo
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 19 Aug 00 - 05:10 PM

Not very secret then is it.... For those of you who understand these things, think Dambusters!!!

LTS

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Little Bunny Foo Foo
From: Gypsy
Date: 20 Aug 00 - 01:01 AM

Just when I thought i had forgotten the tune from the last time....will have to stick it to the group at session tomorrow again! I believe in equal opportunity madness!

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Little Bunny Foo Foo
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 20 Aug 00 - 09:03 AM

You think this is bad, try 'Little cottage in the wood, little old man at the window stood.....' that is guaranteed to squirrel for days AND you catch yourself doing the actions on the tube/bus/train and in lifts.....

LTS

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Little Bunny Foo Foo
From: rabbitrunning
Date: 20 Aug 00 - 09:30 AM

I sing "little cottage in the wood" with my preschool groups and they love it. The teachers get nervous about the "shoot me dead" line with the mock rifle, though...

*sigh*

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Little Bunny Foo Foo
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 20 Aug 00 - 05:17 PM

From my experience of preschoolers, they are more likely to stick it in a gin trap - much less humane than a shot in the head..... preschoolers are vicious like that....

LTS

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Little Bunny Foo Foo
From: oggie
Date: 20 Aug 00 - 07:56 PM

For this and many other songs that oggiejnr learned I have to thank 'The Singing Kettle' aka Cilla Fisher and Artie Trezise. The tapes are magic but buy more than one as even these begin to pale on a 5 hour car journey. The earlier ones, I think, are the best as they use real instruments played by some superb musicians rather than keyboards.

All the best

Steve