I'm a Little Teapot

"I'm a Little Teapot"
Song

"The Teapot Song" (commonly known as "I'm a Little Teapot") is a song describing the heating and pouring of a teapot or tea kettle. The song was originally written by George Harold Sanders and Clarence Z. Kelley and published in 1939.Ronnie Kemper is the singer who first sang this song and is represented in this photograph.

Creation

Clarence Kelley and his wife ran a dance school for children, which taught the "Waltz Clog", a popular and easy-to-learn tap routine. This routine, however, proved too difficult for the younger students to master. To solve this problem, George Sanders wrote The Teapot Song, which required minimal skill and encouraged natural pantomime. Both the song and its accompanying dance, the "Teapot Tip", became enormously popular in America and overseas.

Song Text

Though many variations have arisen over the years, the popular song text are as follows (dance motions in parentheses):

First verse:

I'm a little teapot,

Short and stout,

Here is my handle (one hand on hip),

Here is my spout (other arm out with elbow and wrist bent),

When I get all steamed up,

Hear me shout,

Tip me over and pour me out! (lean over toward spout)

Second verse:

I'm a clever teapot,

Yes, it's true,

Here's an example of what I can do,

I can turn my handle into a spout, (switch arms)

Tip me over and pour me out!

Cultural references

Featured as a haunted rhyme that the villain, Andre Linoge, psychically transmits throughout Stephen King's "Storm of The Century" TV movie (1999). The song is also sung in another Stephen King movie "Rose Red" (2002) by the ghost of the child character April Rimbauer.

Referenced in the Internet technology standards paper RFC 2324, an April Fools' document that describes the Hyper Text Coffee Pot Control Protocol. One part defines Hypertext Transport Protocol status code 418 to mean "I'm a teapot". This occurs when an attempt to brew coffee with a teapot is made, and the resulting entity body (the contents of the page displayed by the browser) "MAY be short and stout".

Tim Brooke-Taylor from The Goodies (1970s) would say the first line while miming the actions sometimes when in a panic. The Goodies also recorded a pop song titled "I'm A Teapot."

Season 1 Episode 4 of Friday the 13th: The Series (episode entitled "A Cup of Time") features the song as sung by sinister elderly lady come rock star "Lady Die" played by Hilary Shepard Turner.

In QI (Season G, Episode 1, "Garden") Stephen Fry puts both hands on his hips and changes the rhyme to "I'm a little teapot, short and stout, here is my handle, oh bugger I'm a sugar bowl". A similar joke, "I'm a little teapot, short and stout. Here is my handle, here is my... handle... Gosh, I'm a sugar bowl." was used in the original Saturday Night Live cast skit "Gidget Goes to Shock Therapy".

The songs is referenced in Abe Lincoln Must Die! the 4th of 6 episodes of Sam & Max Save the World.

In one from Ed, Edd 'n Eddy episodes, Ed says the first four lines of the song.

The TV series Malcolm in the Middle refers the song in the 14th episode of season 4.