Banjo Eyes is a musical

Musical theatre

Musical theatre is a form of theatre combining songs, spoken dialogue, acting, and dance. The emotional content of the piece – humor, pathos, love, anger – as well as the story itself, is communicated through the words, music, movement and technical aspects of the entertainment as an...

 based on the play Three Men on a Horse

Three Men on a Horse

Three Men on a Horse is a play by George Abbott and John Cecil Holm. The comedy focuses on a man who discovers he has a talent for choosing the winning horse in a race as long as he never places a bet himself.-Plot:...

by John Cecil Holm

John Cecil Holm

John Cecil Holm was an American dramatist, theatre director and actor.He is best known for his 1935 play Three Men on a Horse, co-written with George Abbott....

 and George Abbott

George Abbott

George Francis Abbott was an American theater producer and director, playwright, screenwriter, and film director and producer whose career spanned more than nine decades.-Early years:...

. It has a book

Libretto

A libretto is the text used in an extended musical work such as an opera, operetta, masque, oratorio, cantata, or musical. The term "libretto" is also sometimes used to refer to the text of major liturgical works, such as mass, requiem, and sacred cantata, or even the story line of a...

 by Joseph Quinlan and Izzy Ellinson, music by Vernon Duke

Vernon Duke

Vernon Duke was a Russian-American composer/songwriter, who also wrote under his original name Vladimir Dukelsky. He is best known for "Taking a Chance on Love" with lyrics by Ted Fetter and John Latouche, "I Can't Get Started" with lyrics by Ira Gershwin, "April in Paris" with lyrics by E. Y...

, and lyrics by John La Touche and Harold Adamson

Harold Adamson

For the Toronto Police Chief see Harold Adamson Harold Adamson was an American lyricist during the 1930s and 1940s.- Biography :...

.

Produced by Albert Lewis

Albert Lewis (producer)

Albert Lewis was a Broadway producer. Lewis was also a member of the Lewis and Gordon production team, along with Max Gordon, who produced the original incarnation of The Jazz Singer, which ran for several months at the Fulton Theatre in New York City from 1925-6....

 and staged by Hassard Short

Hassard Short

Hubert Edward Hassard Short , usually known as Hassard Short, was an actor, stage director, set designer and lighting designer in musical theatrewho directed over 50 Broadway and West End shows between 1920 and 1953...

, the Broadway

Broadway theatre

Broadway theatre, commonly called simply Broadway, refers to theatrical performances presented in one of the 40 professional theatres with 500 or more seats located in the Theatre District centered along Broadway, and in Lincoln Center, in Manhattan in New York City...

 production opened on December 25, 1941 at the Hollywood Theatre

Mark Hellinger Theatre

The Mark Hellinger Theatre is a generally used name of a former legitimate Broadway theater, located at 237 West 51st Street in midtown Manhattan, New York City. Since 1991, it has been known as the Times Square Church...

, where it ran for 126 performances. The cast included Eddie Cantor

Eddie Cantor

Eddie Cantor was an American "illustrated song" performer, comedian, dancer, singer, actor and songwriter...

, Lionel Stander

Lionel Stander

Lionel Jay Stander was an American actor in films, radio, theater and television.-Early life and career:Lionel Stander was born in The Bronx, New York, to Russian Jewish immigrants, the first of three children...

, and William Johnson

William Johnson (actor)

William Johnson was an American actor of the stage and screen.-Biography:Born in Baltimore, Johnson began his career as a child actor on the stage. He made his Broadway debut at the age of 8 as Gaffe in the 1924 play Shipwrecked. He returned to Broadway in 1926 to portray the Hangman in Rudolf...

.

Although Cantor was known as "Banjo Eyes," the title referred not to his character but to a talking race horse, played in costume by the vaudeville

Vaudeville

Vaudeville was a theatrical genre of variety entertainment in the United States and Canada from the early 1880s until the early 1930s. Each performance was made up of a series of separate, unrelated acts grouped together on a common bill...

 team of Mayo and Martin. In dream sequences, Banjo Eyes would give Cantor's character tips on which horses were going to win different races, but warned him his supposed talent for picking the winners would vanish if he ever placed a bet himself. The book was a very loose adaptation of its source, and the World War II

World War II

World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...

 anthem "We Did It Before (And We Can Do It Again)" by Charles Tobias

Charles Tobias

-Biography:Born in New York City, Tobias grew up in Worcester, Massachusetts with brothers Harry Tobias and Henry Tobias, also songwriters.He started his musical career in vaudeville. In 1923, he founded his own music publishing firm and worked on Tin Pan Alley...

 and Cliff Friend

Cliff Friend

Cliff Friend was an accomplished songwriter and pianist. A member of Tin Pan Alley, Friend co-wrote several hits including "Lovesick Blues," "My Blackbirds Are Bluebirds Now" and "The Merry-Go-Round Broke Down," also known as the theme song to the Looney Tunes cartoon series.-Early life:Friend was...

 was interpolated into the score for no apparent reason other than to stir up patriotism

Patriotism

Patriotism is a devotion to one's country, excluding differences caused by the dependencies of the term's meaning upon context, geography and philosophy...

 among audience members. Cantor closed the show by singing a medley of his hits in his customary blackface

Blackface

Blackface is a form of theatrical makeup used in minstrel shows, and later vaudeville, in which performers create a stereotyped caricature of a black person. The practice gained popularity during the 19th century and contributed to the proliferation of stereotypes such as the "happy-go-lucky darky...

. The show closed when its star suffered a medical emergency.

Song list

Act I

• Birthday Card
• Valentine’s Day Card
• Easter Greetings
• Merry Christmas
• Mother’s Day
• I’ll Take the City
• The Toast of the Boys at the Post (music and lyrics by George Sumner)
• I’ve Got to Hand It to You
• A Nickel to My Name
• Who Started the Rhumba?
• It Could Only Happen in the Movies

Act II

• Make with the Feet
• We’re Having a Baby
• Banjo Eyes
• The Yanks are on the March Again
• Not a Care in the World
• We Did It Before (And We Can Do It Again)