Load Her Up! This 1950s Song Perfectly Captures a Broke Date

Remember going out with your sweetheart as a youngster? Maybe you didn’t have a lot of money, but still wanted your date to feel special. That’s the mood of this song from 1959. Legendary singer, trumpet player, and bandleader Louis Prima sings this hilarious song to his then-wife, Keely Smith, in a move clip. “Banana Split for My Baby” debuted on his album The Wildest, which featured a number of other jazz hits.

In this song he’s asking the “dispenser man” to make a banana split loaded high with toppings for his girl, while he only wants a glass of plain water. In the song we find out they “won’t eat twice” so this treat has to be their dinner and their dessert. In the old days this was not an uncommon thing to do. With little money a young person might spend their few nickels on a really big or calorie-dense dessert and skip paying higher prices for a proper meal. But, in the end Prima does something unconventional with the check which makes the song even funnier.

He also asks the soda jerk to “top it with a pizza just for fun” implying that this is much more than just a mere snack for them. When listening to this song it’s hard not to imagine those sky-high Bloody Marys these days that come with pickles, olives, tomatoes, and a slice of bacon on a skewer “just for a garnish”.

Hear this classic tune again in the video below in a clip from the film Hey Boy! Hey Girl!