Jeepers Creepers   Johnny Mercer, Harry Warren, Al Donohue (#1 in 1939), Louis Armstrong

Jeepers, creepers....where'd ya get them peepers
Jeepers, creepers...where'd ya get those eyes
Gosh oh, git up....how'd they get so lit up
Gosh oh, gee oh....how'd they get that size

Golly gee...When you turn them heaters on
Woe is me...got to put my cheaters on

Jeepers, creepers....where'd ya get them peepers
Oh, those weepers....how they hypnotize









This was Johnny Mercer's first Oscar nomination.  He said "I think I heard Henry Fonda say something like 'jeepers creepers' in a movie, and I thought it would be a cute idea for a song.  I searched around quite a bit and then found that it fit so well as a title for that melody of Harry's.  It was lucky casting that we got Louis Armstrong to sing it, although it wasn't written for him."

Sung in the film "Going Places", "Jeepers Creepers" is the name of a racehorse who refuses to run unless Louis is singing to him! Johnny Mercer, the lyricist, recalled its inspiration: "My wife and I went to see a movie one night at Grauman's Chinese Theatrer and Henry Fonda played a farm boy in it... And in the move he saw something, something impressed him, and he said, "Jeepers creepers," and that just rang a little bell in my head, and I wrote it down when I got out of the movie.