December 4, 1928: Whoopee! premieres on Broadway, a musical based on the play The Nervous Wreck by Owen Davis. The story was written by William Anthony McGuire, with music by Walter Donaldson and lyrics by Gus Kahn. The producer is the man then in the process of taking over from George M. Cohan as the King of Broadway, Florenz Ziegfeld.
The show itself is forgettable, but 2 of its songs are remembered: "Makin' Whoopee," sung by the show's male lead, Eddie Cantor, for whom it would become his biggest hit song; and "Love Me Or Leave Me," by the show's female lead, Ruth Etting, and brought back as a hit in 1955 by Doris Day, who starred as Etting in a film of the same title. The show also features a pair of up-and-comers in its chorus: Buddy Ebsen and Paulette Goddard.
The venue is the New Amsterdam Theatre at 214 West 42nd Street. After many years as a derelict, it was bought and renovated by the Walt Disney Company, and reopened in 1997. Currently, it is showing a live-action version of Disney’s "Aladdin."
The show was filmed in 1930, as a musical with mostly different songs, but still starring Cantor.
In the years to come, "making whoopee" became code for "having sex," and in the 1970s would be used as a euphemism on TV games shows like Match Game and The Newlywed Game.
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December 4, 1928 was a Tuesday. Baseball was out of season. Football was in midweek. The NBA hadn't been founded yet.
There were 2 games in the NHL. The Boston Bruins beat the New York Rangers, 2-0 at the brand-new Boston Garden. And the Toronto Maple Leafs beat the Montreal Canadiens, 3-1 at the Montreal Forum.
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