A-ROOTIE TOOT TOOT
by Bryce Martin

As slang for the affirmative “all right,” I wasn’t inclined to say something along the lines of “aw right,” “ah right,” and definitely not “all righty.” A certain show did persuade me to use a silly alternative, “ahrootie.” I still say it today. Then there was “gosharootie.”

Rootie Kazootie was a great marionette show on television. I didn’t get to see many of the episodes before it went off the air, sometime in 1954. The comic books were good too. Rootie was freckle-faced and wore a baseball cap back on his head. Polka Dottie was his girlfriend and a sidekick was a mouse named El Squeako. The villain was Poison Zoomack. I thought that clever but a bit of a stretch. I knew what poison sumac was but what about the kids who didn’t, who lived in the city or places it didn’t grow. Anyway, the bad guy with his tacky mustache and top hat and tails was always trying to steal Rootie’s magic Kazootie, a kazoo. I obtained a kazoo for myself and after several attempts finally got a sound out of it. By then the show had disappeared and soon did my kazoo.

Chuck Berry, the brilliant songwriter and performer, may have been familiar with the show. A good thing maybe since it is a rare word that resonates well with “tutti frutti.”

Tutti frutti, awrootie/I gotta gal named Sue/She knows just what to do…

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