a question

[mrdj]

I have heard a term used on Jack's shows several times, and really just referenced it to the era, and accepted it as something that was supposed to be funny. This morning on the way to work I was listening to a ''Chase and Sanborn Hour'' with Bergen and McCarthy and the same term came up. The word is ''ochachonia''. I tried looking it up on the web, and tried several spellings but all that came up was a painting with that name by a Florida artist. Any help out there on what the joke is supposed to be ?

Thanks so much! dj

[shimp scrampi]

It's a gypsy/Russian folk song "Ochi chyornye" (but also spelled various other ways being translated from Cyrillic), aka "Dark Eyes". I seem to remember it being used as a punchline for an "ethnic" "old" or corny song, right?

[mrdj]

Thanks for the quick response. That would be an apt title for the painting the search led to. I'll have to listen again to the shows and get the lead-ins to see how dark-eyes figures in. I don't remember that they were talking about Jack's ''oh, they're blue aren't they?'' eyes.

[Maxwell]

And in case you're not familiar with the melody, it's the music that plays in the Bugs Bunny cartoon, "Falling Hare" when Bugs tries to break down the door to escape the plane the gremlin has locked him in.

[bboswell]

It is also the song that George Burns sings and Jack plays (partially) when they are trying to put on a gypsy concert in the Burns & Allen radio show. (They intentionally don't do the song justice, and only play and sing a few bars of it.)

Here is an operatic version of the song on YouTube:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DP2R1YEo ... ed&search=