Since links sometimes disappear, here is an excerpt from -

MICKEY AND MR. GUMPY:
THE GLOBAL AND THE UNIVERSAL IN CHILDREN'S MEDIA
by
M�ire Messenger Davies

One of the remarkable aspects of children's own play-culture is that it has always had a global circulation,
which has proved difficult to explain. Iona and Peter Opie (1959, reprinted 1986) describe how the same, or
similar, children's slang, games and rituals, may turn up in widely different national and international
locations almost simultaneously. For example, when the ballad of Davy Crockett was launched on British
radio in 1956, a spoof was collected in September 1956 from a Swansea schoolgirl:

Born on a table top in Joe's cafe (apparently a real cafe in Swansea)
Dirtiest place in the USA
Polished off his father when he was only three
Polished off his mother with DDT.

But before the official Davy Crockett song had reached Britain, an Australian correspondent, writing to the
Opies on 3 January 1956, reported that 'the following ditty was sweeping the schools in Sydney':

Reared on a paddle pop in Joe's cafe
The dirtiest dump in the USA
Poisoned his mother with DDT
And shot his father with a .303

The Opies comment: 'It seems that the schoolchild underground also employs trans-world couriers.' (p. 7,
13
The Lore and Language of Schoolchildren)