This is the part where being a sedentary old fart who sees too much TV is actually useful.
I remember the Harry Belefonte episode from the Muppet Show in the '70s like it was last Thursday morning. This is the ep's first song sequence where the gag is the Muppets continuously interrupting the song for some reason. "What's a tallyman? "Deadly black tarantulas?!" And it continues relentlessly from there.
In fact, the
first thing I thought when I saw this was, "Yes, this one's funnier, but
the show's final song, "Turn The World Around" is one of the best in
the entire series."
BTW, the actual song title, if I remember the original correctly, is simply "The Banana Boat Song". "Day-O" is often added to make it easier to remember. Since that's been done on many occasions, it's permissible here.
I suppose this is the point where I should note that the important part was that this is quite obviously not the original version, but a performance of it with the Muppets from when he guest starred on, well...I only mentioned it a half dozen times. This info snippet should be mentioned somewhere...done. See that? Since I spent all this time remembering the episode, I forgot the important bit.
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Dan C:
It actually wasn't shortened for the show.... The 3:42 version is the one we found and played. The title is reversed on it as well and not sure which is the official title? A search has it listed as either/or.