The Banjo Biff Story

Banjo Biff was born in Missouri, USA, at the turn of the twentieth century to Herbert, a railroad worker, and Nellie, not a railroad worker. As a little boy he sold newspapers and learned business acumen. He pioneered the installment plan, dividing newspapers by tearing them in half, widthwise. This system was eventually halted, due to readers later pasting the wrong halves together. Famously, one customer believed the doctored headline: "Asteroid Will—Impregnate All Women" and, heartbroken by his wife's imminent infidelity, drove to an out-of-town quarry to stamp on the rocks.

Biff left school at the age of fourteen. With a spotless record of absence, schoolmasters agreed he was well prepared for life outside of school. He worked for a short time in a shoe factory, where he built on his accrued skills. After six weeks, he was summarily dismissed when a customer received a pair of half-shoes, torn widthwise.

Later Biff began working with a pianist named Ivor Reese. It was at this time that Biff's natural incompetence in banjo playing came to the fore. Reese could withstand rehearsing with Biff for hours on end, thanks to a congenital hearing impediment. The two composed the song Ta-Dah, which some considered to be too showy. Undeterred, the duo turned out one song after another, to varying success: while some records were dead ducks, others failed miserably.

The duo were clueless why public recognition had eluded them. Who could stop their foot tapping to Lather and Rinse, Sweaty Neck Blues, or The Fresh Laundry Waltz? One detractor suggested they extend their repertoire beyond personal hygiene. Biff lamented, "Can I help what the muse brings to me?". One evening before a show, Biff warmed up the audience, promising them a great night ahead, to which one audience member quipped: "Oh, do you have to go home already?" Biff ploughed on with a well-rehearsed preamble to Why Not Wax?, but Reese had got the message. That night he quit the duo, leaving a note for Biff in the dressing room that said: "We'll always have Ta-Dah. P.S. You owe me ten bucks for gas."

Banjo Biff developed a personal friendship with Walt Disney, who sincerely liked Ta-Dah. Upon first hearing the number, Disney hummed it for four days straight. Disney's wife, Lillian, thought the humming to be a ruse to avoid talking with her during a spat—consequently she always disapproved of Biff. Despite this, Biff continued to be a creative influence on the animator for years to come. Historians say that it was Biff's idea for Donald Duck to have only one beak. Disney had originally imagined the character with two beaks, but Biff gently counseled his friend: "Walt, ducks aren't like that."

One evening backstage in Los Angeles, Banjo Biff was chowing down—his preferred direction to chow—on a slice of chocolate fudge cake. Irving Thalberg, then production head of MGM, approached the table and proceeded to sing Biff's praises—in a worthy baritone, no less. Thalberg whisked Biff away to a dressing room, where he was signed to appear in six motion pictures—a dream come true, for three minutes, before Thalberg realised Biff's greasepaint moustache was in fact chocolate icing, and Biff was in fact not Groucho Marx.

In the seventies, Banjo Biff's health was in decline. He lived alone in a partly furnished apartment—the part by the stairs had a hat rack. His final years were spent in a torpor of camomile tea and nostalgia. Even though his show business days were over, a few hangers-on occasionally left flowers and notes on the doorstep, such as: "Hoping athritis prevents a comeback" and "Spare us the farewell tour".