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M.A. Bogue

Personal Profile

M.A. Bogue
  • Birth Name:
    Merwyn Bogue
  • Nickname:
    Ish Kabibble
  • Date of Birth:
    January 19, 1908
  • Place of Birth:
    Erie, Pennsylvania, USA
  • Place of Death:
    Palm Springs, California, USA
  • Date of Death:
    June 5, 1994
  • Cause of Death:
    Respiratory failure
  • Sex:
    Male
  • Hair Color:
    Black
  • Eye Color:
    Brown
  • Nationality:
    American
  • Education:
    BA Economics, West Virginia University

Family

M.A. Bogue
  • Spouse:
    Janet

Career

M.A. Bogue
  • Profession:
    Actor, Lyricist
  • Claim to Fame:
    Around the World
  • Debut:
    That's Right - You're Wrong

Trivia

M.A. Bogue
  • Ish Kabibble was a comedian, Musician and cornet player.
  • During World War II Bogue entered the U.S. army serving as a private and continued with Kayser's band entertaining the troops.
  • He managed Kay Kayser's band from 1931 to 1951.
  • In his role as Ish Kabibble, Bogue entertained fans with his trumpet playing, his nonsensical quips and corny poems.
  • Some maintain that Jerry Lewis lifted his comedic persona and look from Ish Kabibble, making an otherwise identical character more manic than Ish Kabibble's earlier presentation.
  • The name "Ish Kabbible" was used for a hoax student supposedly enrolled at Princeton University in the 1950s.
  • In 1985, the character's name was used as a plot device on the animated series The Thirteen Ghosts of Scooby-Doo.
  • On this series, Scooby and the gang, along with an animated spoof of Vincent Price, are in search of the Amulet of Ish Kabibble.
  • In the TV show M.A.S.H., Alan Alda's character "Hawkeye Pierce" several times refers to Ish Kabibble.
  • Once he asks who he and Trapper John should drink to - MacArthur or Ish Kabibble? Another time he refers to Ish Kabibble and his All Girl Orchestra and refers to him as part of a dream.

Quotes

M.A. Bogue
  • "No matter how much you know about one thing, there's always something else you ain't as good at as, because if you was, you wouldn't be as good at the thing you are are at now, if you are?"
View all Quotes: M.A. Bogue

Biography

M.A. Bogue
Last Updated: Saturday, September 12, 2009

M.A. BogueIsh Kabibble was a comedian and cornet player. Born Merwyn Bogue in North East, Pennsylvania, his family returned to Erie, Pennsylvania a few months after his birth. He studied law at West Virginia University, but his comedy antics soon found an audience. He performed with Kay Kyser on the television quiz show Kay Kyser's Kollege of Musical Knowledge in 1949 and 1950. He also appeared in ten movies between 1939 and 1950.

In Thousands Cheer (1943), he is the band member who tells Kyser the joke about his friend receiving $250,000, and he sings "I Dug a Ditch" in that film. He's also a vocalist in That's Right — You're Wrong (1939), You'll Find Out (1940), and Playmates (1941). In his 1989 autobiography, Bogue explained his stage name, which he took from the lyrics of one of his comedic songs, "Isch ga-bibble." The song derived from a boy named Ben, who thought the word was cool.

Ishkabibble, which was purported to mean "I should worry?", prompted a curious (and perhaps not coincidental) association of the comedian with the "What, me worry?" motto of Mad's mascot, Alfred E. Neuman. While this derivation has been widely quoted on the Internet and elsewhere, the expression "ische ga bibble" is not Yiddish, and, in fact, contains no Yiddish words at all. Although Bogue's stage persona was that of a dimwitted person, he was a notable cornet player and was also business manager for the Kay Kyser Orchestra from 1931 to 1951. With the decline of the big bands, Bogue found a new career in real estate. He died in 1994 in Palm Springs, California.

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