Piero Umiliani

Mah Na Mah Na

Mah Nà Mah Nà is a song written in 1968 by Italian composer Piero Umiliani. The song has no intelligible lyrics. Umiliani wrote it in 1968 as part of the soundtrack for an erotic documentary. When it was subsequently released on single in the US, it was given the obvious title Mah Nà Mah Nà. Back in the 1960s, American puppeteer and spiritual father of the Muppets, Jim Henson, based an act on Mah Nà Mah Nà. In it, two Muppets with distinctive snouts sang their version of the song together with a furry Muppet. They were called Mahna Mahna and the Snowths. Mahna Mahna and the Snowths first sang the song on 30 November 1969 during an appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show. In 1970, the act was performed again, this time on the children’s programme Sesame Street, and when the Muppets got their own weekly television show from 1976, Mah Nà Mah Nà was the opening number in the first episode. The creative arrangement is by Johny Ocean.