Louis Proyect

July 19, 2001

Post #1351 – 20010719

I am quite sure that I first heard this made-up name from Daniel Pinkwater, who was my next door neighbor in Hoboken and classmate at Bard College. I can’t exactly remember, however, whether he coined it himself or whether he heard it in some 1930s Hollywood comedy. I thought that perhaps it was the name of a Groucho Marx or W.C. Fields character, but apparently not. So who is “Hukkalaka Meshabob”?

Daniel replies:

Hukalaka Meshabab is the name of a wrestler in a W.C. Fields movie. (I forget which one). I believe Fields culled names from phone directories, though some, like Mahatma Kane Jeeves, he made up. Hi Louis.