Hooray for Hollywood

Last updated January 26, 2025

"Hooray for Hollywood" is a popular song first featured in the 1937 movie Hollywood Hotel , and which has since become (together with "That's Entertainment" and "There's No Business like Show Business") the staple soundtrack element of any Academy Awards ceremony. It is even frequently played during non-American movie ceremonies, e.g. the French César Awards. The popularity of the song is notably due to an exciting and memorable melody and lyrics by Johnny Mercer, which reference the American movie industry and satirize the desire to become a Hollywood movie star.

Doris Day’s Version

Doris Day had changed the lyrics in her version, as the lyrics were difficult to fully understand in the original, as they refer to people such as Aimee Semple or Shirley Temple which have since been largely forgotten today. In the original lyrics the line "where any shopgirl can be a top girl, if she pleases the tired businessman" vanished quickly to go with a more appropriate and modern time in the Doris Day’s version and her self titled album of the song, having been replaced with "and any barmaid can be a star made if she dances with or without a fan.” The latter part of the line refers to fan dancing.

In the Doris Day recording, she mentions Marilyn Monroe to keep up to date with the outdated lyrics of the recording.

The first national news bulletin of the Media coverage of the assassination of John F. Kennedy was transmitted over the ABC Radio Network at 12:36 p.m. CST/1:36 p.m. EST.^[1] The network was airing the Music in the Afternoon program hosted by Dirk Fredericks and Joel Crager,^[2]^[3] and Doris Day’s recording of ‘’Hooray for Hollywood’’ was playing when newscaster Don Gardiner had to interrupt the song to make the announcement of President John F. Kennedy’s death in 1963.

It also includes reference to Walt Disney and his cartoon character with the lines of "You might be Donald Duck."

Rock band Hollywood Undead sampled the Doris Day version of this song in their live pre-set introduction.

The Doris Day version is used in Ray Donovan Episodes 01 - Season 1 "The Bag or the Bat" (2013).

Usage

The song is used in the opening scene of the Looney Tunes cartoon What's Up, Doc? (1950).
The melody was used on the Jack Benny radio show as the final theme song.
The song is played over the opening and closing shots of Robert Altman's film The Long Goodbye (1973) starring Elliott Gould as Philip Marlowe.
In 1977, the song was performed twice during an episode of The Brady Bunch Variety Hour . Some lyrics were altered to reference then-current pop-culture ("If you find things get rough, you could get Pufnstuf..." and "...where any person like Laverne or Shirley or Jo Anne Worley is equally understood"^[4]).
The song is featured in the musical A Day in Hollywood/A Night in the Ukraine .
The song was used as the opening and exit to Disney-MGM Studios' The Great Movie Ride attraction. This version became one of the many California related songs played throughout "Sunshine Plaza" in the original Disney's California Adventure.^[5]
Jay Leno on the Tonight Show often did take-offs of Rodney Dangerfield's schtick, telling bandleader Kevin Eubanks; "Kevin, the economy is so bad that..." After the punchline, the Tonight Show Band played a fast melody of "Hooray for Hollywood".
In the Disney Channel original movie Phantom of The Megaplex Mickey Rooney’s character “Movie Mason” sings the tail end of the song in front of the theatre for the premiere of the movie.
In The Simpsons episode "Mayored to the Mob", the cast members of a production of Guys and Dolls sing a song with the musical's title to the tune of "Hooray for Hollywood", which, as the show's star Mark Hamill points out, isn't actually one of that show's musical numbers.^[6]
In The Simpsons episode "You Only Move Twice", Waylon Smithers sings to himself "I work for Monty Burns" to the melody of Hooray for Hollywood.
A cha-cha instrumental version of the song was used as bumper music for David Feeney's short-lived "Hollywood Minute" segment on the popular podcast Daves of Thunder .
A simplified score of the melody decorates the banisters in the Hollywood/Vine Red Line Station in Los Angeles leading down to the platform.
The song is used in the opening of Warren Beatty's film Rules Don't Apply (2016).
The song is performed in the 1978 film Sextette starring 87-year-old Mae West, which was her final film.

Related Research Articles

John Herndon Mercer was an American lyricist, songwriter, and singer, as well as a record label executive who co-founded Capitol Records with music industry businessmen Buddy DeSylva and Glenn E. Wallichs.

Richard Armstrong Whiting was an American composer of popular songs, including the standards "Hooray for Hollywood", "Ain't We Got Fun?" and "On the Good Ship Lollipop". He also wrote lyrics occasionally, and film scores most notably for the standard "She's Funny That Way".

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"Singin' in the Rain" is a song with lyrics by Arthur Freed and music by Nacio Herb Brown. Doris Eaton Travis introduced the song on Broadway in The Hollywood Music Box Revue in 1929. It was then widely popularized by Cliff Edwards and the Brox Sisters in The Hollywood Revue of 1929. Many contemporary artists had hit records with "Singin' in the Rain" since its release, including Cliff Edwards, Earl Burtnett and Gus Arnheim in 1929 alone. It entered the American public domain on January 1, 2025.

Singin' in the Rain is a 1952 American musical romantic comedy film directed and choreographed by Gene Kelly and Stanley Donen, starring Kelly, Donald O'Connor and Debbie Reynolds, and featuring Jean Hagen, Millard Mitchell, Rita Moreno and Cyd Charisse in supporting roles. It offers a lighthearted depiction of Hollywood in the late 1920s, with the three stars portraying performers caught up in the transition from silent films to "talkies".

"There's No Business Like Show Business" is an Irving Berlin song, written for the 1946 musical Annie Get Your Gun and orchestrated by Ted Royal. The song, a slightly tongue-in-cheek salute to the glamour and excitement of a life in show business, is sung in the musical by members of Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show in an attempt to persuade Annie Oakley to join the production. It is reprised three times in the musical.

"Enjoy Yourself (It's Later Than You Think)" is a popular song published in 1949, with music written by Carl Sigman and lyrics by Herb Magidson.

"Que Será, Será " is a song written by Jay Livingston and Ray Evans and first published in 1955. Doris Day introduced it in the Alfred Hitchcock film The Man Who Knew Too Much (1956), singing it as a cue to their onscreen kidnapped son. The three verses of the song progress through the life of the narrator—from childhood, through young adulthood and falling in love, to parenthood—and each asks "What will I be?" or "What lies ahead?" The chorus repeats the answer: "What will be, will be."

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"High Hopes" is a popular song first popularized by Frank Sinatra, with music written by James Van Heusen and lyrics by Sammy Cahn. It was introduced by Sinatra and child actor Eddie Hodges in the 1959 film A Hole in the Head, was nominated for a Grammy, and won an Oscar for Best Original Song at the 32nd Academy Awards.

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">You Made Me Love You (I Didn't Want to Do It)</span> 1913 song recorded by Al Jolson

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">The Gold Diggers' Song (We're in the Money)</span>

"The Gold Diggers' Song " is a song from the 1933 Warner Bros. film Gold Diggers of 1933, sung in the opening sequence by Ginger Rogers and chorus. The entire song is never performed in the 1933 movie, though it introduces the film in the opening scene. Later in the movie, the tune is heard off stage in rehearsal as the director continues a discussion on camera about other matters.

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"The Simpsons Theme", also referred to as "The Simpsons Main Title Theme" in album releases, is the theme music of the animated television series The Simpsons. It plays during the opening sequence and was composed by Danny Elfman in 1989, after series creator Matt Groening approached him requesting a theme. The piece has been noted by Elfman as the most popular of his career.

<i>My Dream Is Yours</i> 1949 film by Friz Freleng, Michael Curtiz

My Dream Is Yours is a 1949 American Technicolor musical romantic comedy film directed by Michael Curtiz and starring Jack Carson, Doris Day, and Lee Bowman. This was a loose remake of the 1934 Twenty Million Sweethearts, starring Dick Powell and Ginger Rogers.

Hollywood Hotel is a 1937 American romantic musical comedy film, directed by Busby Berkeley, starring Dick Powell, Rosemary Lane, Lola Lane, Hugh Herbert, Ted Healy, Glenda Farrell and Johnnie Davis, featuring Alan Mowbray and Mabel Todd, and with Allyn Joslyn, Grant Mitchell and Edgar Kennedy.

"The Lonesome Road" is a 1927 song with music by Nathaniel Shilkret and lyrics by Gene Austin, alternately titled "Lonesome Road", "Look Down that Lonesome Road" and "Lonesome Road Blues." It was written in the style of an African American folk song.

References

↑ Trost, Cathy; Bennett, Susan (2003). President Kennedy Has Been Shot . Naperville, Illinois: Sourcebooks. p. 34. ISBN 9781402201585.
↑ JFK'S ASSASSINATION (ABC RADIO NETWORK) (NOVEMBER 22, 1963) on YouTube
↑ Yearbook of Radio & Television (PDF) (27th ed.). Radio Television Daily. 1964. pp. 823, 826.
↑ "You Tube: Brady Bunch Variety Hour: Hooray for Hollywood". YouTube . 30 April 2009. Archived from the original on 2021-12-22. Retrieved June 6, 2014.
↑ "Sunshine Plaza". Archived from the original on 2017-09-25. Retrieved 2016-06-11.
↑ "Mayored to the Mob". The Simpsons Archive . 26 May 2002. Retrieved 21 July 2015.

External links

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[ABC-1] Trost, Cathy; Bennett, Susan (2003). President Kennedy Has Been Shot . Naperville, Illinois: Sourcebooks. p. 34. ISBN 9781402201585.

[2] JFK'S ASSASSINATION (ABC RADIO NETWORK) (NOVEMBER 22, 1963) on YouTube

[3] Yearbook of Radio & Television (PDF) (27th ed.). Radio Television Daily. 1964. pp. 823, 826.

[4] "You Tube: Brady Bunch Variety Hour: Hooray for Hollywood". YouTube . 30 April 2009. Archived from the original on 2021-12-22. Retrieved June 6, 2014.

[5] "Sunshine Plaza". Archived from the original on 2017-09-25. Retrieved 2016-06-11.

[6] "Mayored to the Mob". The Simpsons Archive . 26 May 2002. Retrieved 21 July 2015.

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