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Last week I was reading this post about a famous Muppet's sketch with Fozzie and Kermit (featuring in episode 110), so I watched it (the video can be easily found on several streaming service, and, even more easily, on the internet).

I must admit that my English is quite bad, and in fact, even after watching it with subtitles several times, the joke is still unclear to me:

  1. what is the connection between Kermit's "bear" and Fozzie slang "No, he-is-a-not, he is wearing a neck-a-tie"?

  2. why Stadler, when asked by Waldorf at the end of the sketch if he understood the joke, replied "no, but I don't speak Italian" ?

Given that I AM Italian, I am quite interested in understanding the dark of this joke.

I googled it quite a bit, but as of now I've found no clear explanation.

sigmud
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    "the dark of this joke"? I've no idea what this is meant to be; jokes don't have darks. – Stuart F Mar 14 '24 at 14:55
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    I haven't listened to anything but I'm quite sure *"No, he-is-a-not, he is wearing a neck-a-tie"* is "mock Italian", which is probably relevant. And I'm also certain that the reference to a *neck-tie* is because that's what the famous cartoon character *Yogi bear* wears. Without background knowledge of Yogi Bear, the reference to a necktie wouldn't make sense. – FumbleFingers Mar 14 '24 at 18:34
  • ..note that Yogi Bear's catchphrase was (that he was) *...smarter than the average bear!, so the Muppets skit might well refer to that as well. There are probably lots more cultural references. For example, "Good grief!"* is the catchphrase of Charlie Brown in the Peanuts cartoon strip. And I expect the mock Italian alludes to Super Mario. – FumbleFingers Mar 14 '24 at 18:39
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    @FumbleFingers Although your alusions to Yogi Bear and Peanuts are interesting, I don't think either are significant in this joke. "Good grief" is just an exclamation like "Oh my!" (although people do associate it with Peanuts). Fozzie himself is wearing a necktie, so no need for a reference to Yogi. Astrabee's answer below explains it quite well. – Mark Meuer Mar 14 '24 at 20:25
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    @MarkMeuer: You're quite right. I never really saw much of the Muppets. Didn't realize how much they apparently "borrowed". – FumbleFingers Mar 14 '24 at 20:50
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    @FumbleFingers I have very happy memories of watching that show with my parents when I was a child. – Mark Meuer Mar 14 '24 at 20:59
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    @FumbleFingers the Muppet Show episode is from December 13, 1976, so four and a half years before Mario's first outing in "Donkey Kong". I suspect mock Italian accents in the USA date from 19th century Italian migration (during 1880-1914 four million Italians migrated to the US, comprising 4% of the total population and concentrated in the northeastern states) – Tom Goodfellow Mar 15 '24 at 21:07
  • @TomGoodfellow, Mario didn't even have his distinctive fake Italian accent until he was voiced by Charles Martinet in 1994, so this episode actually misses it by about 18 years. – Seth R Mar 16 '24 at 16:32
  • "No, he-is-a-not, he is wearing a neck-a-tie" (at 1 min 42 secs) – Peter Mortensen Mar 17 '24 at 19:04

2 Answers2

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There are three things you need to understand in order to comprehend the joke:

  • It's an old comedy trope that Italians, when speaking English, add 'a' sounds at the end of words. Like many such tropes, it's just a stereotype. But as Italian words tend to end in vowels whilst English words tend to end on a consonant sound, adding an exaggerated vowel to the end of English words makes it sound like someone is Italian to a native English speaker. A modern example of this you might know is Nintendo's famous Italian plumber saying "it's-a me, Mario!".

  • "A bear" is an animal, which Fozzie is.

  • "Bare" is a homophone of bear, and means naked.

In the joke, Kermit cries "good grief, the comedian's a bear!", in response to Fozzie being a bear.

Fozzie's punchline "no he's-a-not, he's'-a-wearing a neck-a-tie" adds in numerous exaggerated 'a' sounds, implying that he is an Italian and has mistaken "he's a bear" as "he's bare". His response that he is wearing a tie is a protest against the accusation that he is naked (which the puppet mostly is, aside from his trademark tie and hat).

Stadler's comment after the joke is funny because it is paradoxical and ridiculous - he claims not to understand the joke, but as I have explained, recognising that Fozzie is doing a mock Italian accent is the key to understanding the joke. There is also the suggestion that, by speaking English in such an accent, Stadler thought he was actually speaking the Italian language.

Astralbee
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    Surely there's at least a fourth bit of background knowledge needed here. Yogi Bear's necktie! – FumbleFingers Mar 14 '24 at 18:35
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    @FumbleFingers What does Yogi have to do with the Muppets? – Astralbee Mar 14 '24 at 19:22
  • I was a bit too old for the Muppets. But it looks like they pinched things from at least Peanuts, The Fonz, Yogi Bear, Super Mario... – FumbleFingers Mar 14 '24 at 19:28
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    Fozzie Bear (the comedian) also wears a necktie. – BeginTheBeguine Mar 14 '24 at 19:39
  • Also, just as a comment I don't think it's necessarily that more Italian words end in vowels, but more that letters at the ends of words are given their whole value by Italian speakers, rather than elided. To English speakers this sounds like there's an "a" sound between words, but it's actually just a stronger t/d/m sound than we'd expect. – BeginTheBeguine Mar 14 '24 at 19:45
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    @BeginTheBeguine perhaps I should have said "vowel sounds", then. I'm sure it's not every word that ends in a vowel... Although "tell me a joke, puppet bear" translates as raccontami una barzelletta, orsetto burattino. So maybe there's something in it. – Astralbee Mar 14 '24 at 20:21
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    @FumbleFingers "Good grief" is an expression frequently used by Kermit, and not uncommon in society at large. While it's conceivable this was originally inspired by Peanuts, it's hardly obvious on the face of it. The first Mario Bros game came out in 1983, seven years after this episode aired. And animals dressed as humans has been a common comedic theme since time immemorial. Just because [A] reminds you of [B] does not mean [A] was referencing or "pinching" from [B]. – Jay McEh Mar 14 '24 at 20:51
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    I think there is a fourth thing you need to understand: Fozzie is a bad comedian. That's part of the joke whenever he is involved. If there's any Yogi involved, I'm guessing it's Yogi Beara. I don't have any real evidence of this other than the 'fork in the road' in the "Muppet Movie". As Yogi (Beara) said, "take it". – JimmyJames Mar 14 '24 at 21:44
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    That is indeed a lot of vowels at the end @Astralbee :D – BeginTheBeguine Mar 14 '24 at 21:49
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    The pseudo-Italian doesn't just add "a" at the end of words, but at the end of syllables in polysyllabic words - such as "neck-a-tie", and "That's a spicy meat-a-ball". – Kirt Mar 15 '24 at 01:59
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    @Kirt - reminds me of a silly song called "Shaddap-a you face" by Joe Dolce, which was a hit back in the 80's. The chorus goes: "What's-a matter you? Hey! Gotta no respect, What-a you t'ink you do? Why you look-a so sad? It's-a not so bad, it's-a nice-a place, Ah shaddap-a you face!". – Billy Kerr Mar 15 '24 at 12:16
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    @kirt Yes - Joe Dolce was born to Italian-American parents, but was an Australian citizen himself and spoke with an Australian accent. His 'Italian' accent was affected for comic purposes. – Astralbee Mar 15 '24 at 13:35
  • @JimmyJames It's Yogi Bera. The cartoon character Yogi Bear was obviously a play on this name. – Barmar Mar 15 '24 at 14:25
  • +1 Am I right in thinking this makes it a paragogic schwa? – Dave Gremlin Mar 15 '24 at 15:31
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    @FumbleFingers The Muppet Show and Happy Days aired at around the same time and were aimed at the same demographic, so I think you weren't too old for it, you just missed it. :P – Idran Mar 15 '24 at 16:24
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    @Barmar: That's closer - but it's Yogi Berra, with two "r"s! (Wikipedia says "Hanna-Barbera claimed that the similarity [of the names] was just a coincidence", but of course they would say that ;-) ) – psmears Mar 15 '24 at 17:15
  • @Idran: I think back then we didn't always get the same US series at the same time (if ever!) here in the UK. But I might have been more into doing other things by then (I was certainly old enough to be going down the pub!). – FumbleFingers Mar 15 '24 at 18:47
  • @Idran I knew this joke very well because it was on the Muppet Show album that came out in 1979. In fact, I don't think I've ever seen this sketch, only heard it (over and over). – Astralbee Mar 16 '24 at 15:21
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This answer elaborates on part of AstralBee's excellent answer (+1).

Definitely "I don't speak Italian" refers to the accented and broken English spoken by Italian born migrants who emigrated to English speaking countries in a diaspora after World War 2. The accent often persisted longer for women who spoke Italian at home but never entered the paid work force and so had few opportunities to speak English on a regular basis.

If you want an idea of what it sounded like, check out "Shaddap You Face" by Joe Dolce on YouTube, an affectionate parody of the style. Super Mario's accent was based on this style of accent as well, not the other way around.

traktor
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