Inchworm (song)

Song from the film Hans Christian Andersen

"Inchworm", also known as "The Inch Worm", is a song originally performed by Danny Kaye in the 1952 film Hans Christian Andersen. It was written by Frank Loesser.

The 1954 Looney Tunes cartoon "From A to Z Z Z Z" opens with a classroom of children reciting the verbatim arithmetic lesson in the same cadence. A recording of Danny Kaye singing it was used as the underscoring for a shadow puppet segment on the Captain Kangaroo television show. Was sung in part by Principal Skinner in The Simpsons episode S2:E14 "Principal Charming". Inchworm has been performed in skits on Jim Henson's Sesame Street and The Muppet Show; the song was done twice by Charles Aznavour, once in a regular sketch, and then again with Danny Kaye and the Muppets when he was on the show. The song was performed on the American children's television show Curiosity Shop (ABC). In the television series Quantum Leap episode Another Mother, Al (Dean Stockwell) sang it as a lullaby. It was used in a 1995 episode of the UK television programme BBC Horizons entitled "Nanotopia", during a segment explaining the "assemblers" of Eric Drexler. The song was also briefly featured in the popular British schools drama Grange Hill, being sung by the school choir during rehearsals. It was featured at the end of a fourth season episode of the show Northern Exposure. In 2010, twice Ivor Novello Awards nominated band The Leisure Society performed the song for the American Laundromat Records children's compilation, Sing Me to Sleep Indie Lullabies. The song was also sung as a children's lullaby during episode 17 of the first season of the popular TV sitcom Everybody Loves Raymond. A slightly re worked version of "Inchworm" appears in the opening and closing sequences of the video game Paper Mario.