Who put the *boing* in *boing*field?
Watching the Simpsons episode about the Maison Derriere last night, which ends with a song about putting the *boing* in Springfield. The *boing* noise is made initially by Belle twanging the springy antenna of the guy who plays a giant bee in Mexican soap operas (I'm sure he has a name, but I don't know what it is).
Clearly we're intended to read the *boing* noise as signifying "spring", as in "We put the spring in Springfield". And that seems perfectly natural, because everyone knows that springs go *boing*, right?
Except they don't actually, do they? A single spring makes hardly any noise at all, and an assembly of them (like in a mattress) makes a creaking noise. I don't think anything in the real world makes a *boing* noise, yet in cartoons, whenever something springy happens, a *boing* noise is the inevitable accompaniment. In fact there are (at least) two common *boing* noises -- the tight, sharp one, as above and also as epitomized by Gerald Mc*boing**boing*, and also the broader, slow, *bwwunnggg* as in Captain (*bwwunnggg*) Kangaroo, commonly associated with trampolines, pogo sticks etc.
So who first had the idea of using that particular sound effect to accompany a spring, and why, and how? We're all so immersed in it by now that to us it would seem weird if any other effect was used (the Simpsons episode plays on this by using Sideshow Mel's swanee whistle for the third occurrence). But presumably there must have been a time when it was first used, and the audience wondered "why is the spring making that funny boinging noise?"
In related news, who first came up with "awooga" as the way to express the sond made by an old-fashioned air horn / alarm? And how, and why?
Clearly we're intended to read the *boing* noise as signifying "spring", as in "We put the spring in Springfield". And that seems perfectly natural, because everyone knows that springs go *boing*, right?
Except they don't actually, do they? A single spring makes hardly any noise at all, and an assembly of them (like in a mattress) makes a creaking noise. I don't think anything in the real world makes a *boing* noise, yet in cartoons, whenever something springy happens, a *boing* noise is the inevitable accompaniment. In fact there are (at least) two common *boing* noises -- the tight, sharp one, as above and also as epitomized by Gerald Mc*boing**boing*, and also the broader, slow, *bwwunnggg* as in Captain (*bwwunnggg*) Kangaroo, commonly associated with trampolines, pogo sticks etc.
So who first had the idea of using that particular sound effect to accompany a spring, and why, and how? We're all so immersed in it by now that to us it would seem weird if any other effect was used (the Simpsons episode plays on this by using Sideshow Mel's swanee whistle for the third occurrence). But presumably there must have been a time when it was first used, and the audience wondered "why is the spring making that funny boinging noise?"
In related news, who first came up with "awooga" as the way to express the sond made by an old-fashioned air horn / alarm? And how, and why?