The 2013 Broadway University Entrance Exam

Think you can cut the mustard to be part of the incoming frosh class at Broadway University?

If that sentence sounds a little slang-filled, well, that’s the point of The 2013 Broadway University Entrance Exam. Librettists and lyricists have often used slang to make their language more colorful and more apt for their characters.

So what we have here is a list of 50 lyrics and lines from the scripts of Broadway AND off-Broadway musicals. (Don’t neglect the latter!) They span almost a hundred years, for the first one appeared in 1919 and the last in 2013.

All answers must be submitted to pfilichia@aol.com by 11:59 p.m. on Friday, Sept. 6. Have a shoo-bop, sha-wadda-wadda, yippity boom-de-boom, chang chang changitty-chang shoo-bop time in figuring them out.

1. “Ah, the daisiest thing it was!”

2. “He was in a class by himself, by gum!”

3. “Because I bumped off every one of them."

4. “But he’ll have more common sense than his puddin’-headed father ever had.”

5. “I look at his plate and I’ll be hornswoggled if he doesn't leave the whole banana.”

6. “Spruced up and lookin’ in me prime.”

7. “Go, man, go – but not like a yo-yo schoolboy.”

8. "If I stumbled and I busted my whatchamacallit."

9. “I wonder why we're all so poor and they've got all the dough.”

10. "I'm the cat's meow. My wardrobe is a wow."

11. "Man, those chicks don't know what they're missin.'" 
                           
12. "Her pad is to write in and not spend the night in."

13. “What the hey, what to say? Gotta go all the way.”

14. "I'm all right, Jack! Screw you all!"

15. “And the way I keep my pinky up indubitably proves.”

16. "We travel single-o."

17. "Three year old suit from Robert J. Hall. Jesus H. Christ!"

18. “What a gas! What a smash! What a blast! What a bash!
                          
19. "But every time I make a pass, I get the well-known freezeroo."

20. “And please, my sweet patater – keep this from the mater.”

21. “If only you weren’t so wishy-washy!”

22. "It's not for lack of bread like The Grateful Dead."

23. "Melaroonie!"

24. “Hoo, boy! Boy, to be in your shoes, what I wouldn’t give.”

25. “I know who buys and who just lingers -- and who walks out with sticky fingers.”

26. “Not even if the whole kaboodle sinks.”
                          
27. "'Sorry, I thought you were who-ooh-ooh-sis.'”
                          
28. “Time to hang a little moolah on the washline.”

29. "Hold your snickers for the new enchantress of the flickers."

30. “Hot patootie! Bless my soul!”

31. “Got the bingo-bongos done.”

32. "God, it sounds so Mickey Mouse."

33. "Everyone's a victim of this ducky little dictum."

34. “It’s true Ike was icky, but better him than Dicky.”

35. “All week long we’re wondering who left a green Givenchy gown in the loo.”

36. “Then I say, ‘With a kid, you get married.’ People say ‘Echh, what a freak!’”

37. "Got himself some bimbo and moved to New Rochelle." 
                           
38. “Now take a closer look at you: I oughta throw the book at you.”

39. “Bart makes Terry touch his winky.”

40. “Yes, he’s sick of being stuck in the sticks.”

41. "But haven't you got a hunch that this is the Real McCoy?"

42. “I see nine months’ work going down the drain.”

43. “I’m sending you a contract, ker-ching, ker-ching.” 

44. “At the end of our rope, we had given up hope of one last roll in the hay.”

45. “She’s wasted!”

46. “Don’t believe a word of my mother: interfering pain in the can.”

47. “The kid couldn’t hack it. She’s back and she’s walking real slow.”

48. “There’s the preps and there’s the skate punks and the jocks.”

49. "Holy moley! It's rising slowly! There in all its wonder."                          

50. “And like shazam and bam, here I am!”

         — Peter Filichia