"Makin' Whoopee" is asong first popularized byEddie Cantor in the 1928 musicalWhoopee!.Gus Kahn wrote the lyrics andWalter Donaldson composed the music for the song as well as for the entire musical.
The title refers to celebrating a marriage. Eventually "making whoopee" became aeuphemism for intimate sexual relations.[1]The song has been called a "dire warning", largely to men, about the "trap" of marriage.[2]"Makin' Whoopee" begins with the celebration of awedding,honeymoon and marital bliss, but moves on to babies and responsibilities, and ultimately on to affairs and possible divorce, ending with a judge's advice.
The original lyrics and music of the song entered thepublic domain in the United States in 2024.[3]
1989Branford Marsalis performed a cover in 1989 for his albumTrio Jeepy. It would later be the first song that was ever played onVH1 Smooth on August 1, 1998.[8]
Pepsi used the melody of "Makin' Whoopee" with new lyrics, sung byJoanie Sommers, for its advertising campaign "Now It's Pepsi -- For Those Who Think Young" starting in 1961.[9]
Heinz created a 1993 commercial in which a bottle of ketchup and a bottle of salsa "make whoopee" in a refrigerator, resulting in a salsa-style ketchup.[10]
^"Whoopee".Merriam-Webster. Webster.com. Archived fromthe original on 2007-09-27. Retrieved2006-10-08.
^Holden, Stephen (April 19, 2002)."Crooning About the Woes of Whoopee".The New York Times. Retrieved2006-10-08. A review of aJames Naughtoncabaret performance. "Mr. Naughton pounces on the dire warning to men lurking beneath the song's playful surface: that once the honeymoon is over, marriage can become a trap from which there is no escape."
^Gurwitch, Annabelle. (2015).I see you made an effort : compliments, indignities, and survival stories from the edge of 50. Penguin.ISBN9780142181874.OCLC881869606.
