On top of spaghetti
all covered with cheese
I lost my poor meatball
when somebody sneezed.
It rolled off the table
and onto the floor
and then my poor meatball
rolled right out the door!
It rolled in a garden
and under a bush.
Now my poor meatball
was nothing but mush.
The mush was as tasty
as tasty could be,
and early next summer
it grew into a tree.
The tree was all covered
with beautiful moss.
It grew lovely meatballs
in a tomato sauce.
So if you like spaghetti
all covered with cheese
hold on to your meatballs
and don't ever sneeze!
But speaking of Spaghetti Westerns, do you know how they got that name? You guessed it – because they were filmed in Italy (some in Spain or France). They were also called Italian Westerns and Macaroni Westerns.
These films were popularized in the mid-1960s thanks to Sergio Leone. His film-making style and money-making success ensured that 500 of these films were made in Italy between 1964 and 1978. He made Clint Eastwood famous with his trilogy of “Dollar” films. (A Fistful of Dollars, For a Few Dollars More. and The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly.)
Spaghetti Westerns were made with relatively low budgets. To save money they were shot at the Cinecitta Studios (like Universal Studios in Rome) and various locations in Italy and Spain. (God’s Gun was filmed in Israel.)
Spaghetti Westerns were originally released in Italian. Most featured multilingual casts. To get around this, sound was NOT RECORDED at the time of shooting. Dialogue and sound effects were added post-production.
Some of the sets and studios built for these Spaghetti Westerns are now theme parks that the public can visit. (The photo at right is in Andalusia, Spain.)
There you go.
Now you know.
Does this encourage you to, 1) Write a funny poem? 2) Try your hand at writing a film script? or 3) Write another Western series that becomes wildly popular, like, Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurtry, the Sundance Westerns series by Peter McCurtin, or the multiple Westerns by William J. Johnstone.
Happy writing!
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https://www.reddit.com/r/etymology/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spaghetti_Western
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The Writers in Residence 
Wow! Who knew? Such interesting info. I remember making my first meatballs for my Italian-American husband. I’d called a neighbor to ask for the recipe, and she told me lettuce, ground beef, tomatoes, onions,, etc. When my husband bit into the burger I proudly produced, he looked at it and asked, “What’s this green stuff?” “Lettuce, of course!” I’d mixed all the stuff together…
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You took that recipe TOO literally! Haha, Jill.
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Ooops – burgrt, not a meatball. Sometimes we type too quickly…
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Both the poem and the info on spaghetti westerns was fabulous. But the fact a guy came up with his own plan for movies, made them, and became a legend, says it can be done. And I’m glad he chose Clint Eastwood because he became a legend, too. Fun post.
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Ha, ha, I love it, Jackie! I sent it to my kids, too!! Bless you today! Irene
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Thanks, Irene! You are of an age (like me) that the song and the Westerns are probably familiar. AND…. you may have been in places where they were filmed in Italy.
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Jackie, your post reminded me of how many locations serve as a stand-in for the real thing. Many American films and TV shows are shot in Toronto, while Montreal and Vancouver substitute for London with some stock footage of Big Ben or Buckingham Palace thrown in for “authenticity”. The beautiful and otherworldly city of Matera, Italy has played the role of ancient Jerusalem in biblical pictures since the 1960’s. But perhaps the funniest example was when my former neighborhood near Montrose CA appeared in CSI, set in Las Vegas. They even showed a “local map”, with the right side Montrose streets and the left side Las Vegas streets.
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How true, Miko. And occasionally, I notice the “oops” glimpses. You must have got a real laugh out of seeing Montrose shots in Vegas. Haha.
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Spaghetti westerns were fun, but I didn’t know all that about them. Thanks for the info and the fun post, Jackie!
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Thanks for a fun and informative post, Jackie.
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Sorry for the tardy comment, but just back from England and Greece!
Jackie – this is so entertaining. It took me back to my youth when I was there, in Almeria, Spain as an eager young journalist writing about all those spaghetti westerns. Around the Hotel Aguadulce and the Gran Hotel where the actors and crew stayed I saw Charles Bronson, Brigitte Bardot, Richard Crenna, Lee Van Cleef, Clint Eastwood, Yul Brynner, Leonard Nimoy and a host of cowboy stuntmen. I was in movie heaven, scribbling away for the teenage and film magazines I wrote for. Thank you for reminding me! More for my memoir…
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