"Toot Sweets" is a song from Chitty Chitty Bang Bang

Chitty Chitty Bang Bang (film)

Chitty Chitty Bang Bang is a 1968 musical film with a script by Roald Dahl and Ken Hughes, and songs by the Sherman Brothers, loosely based on Ian Fleming's novel Chitty Chitty Bang Bang: The Magical Car. It starred Dick Van Dyke as Caractacus Potts and Sally Ann Howes as Truly Scrumptious. The...

, the 1968 musical

Musical film

The musical film is a film genre in which songs sung by the characters are interwoven into the narrative, sometimes accompanied by dancing. The songs usually advance the plot or develop the film's characters, though in some cases they serve merely as breaks in the storyline, often as elaborate...

 motion picture. In the film it is sung by Dick Van Dyke

Dick Van Dyke

Richard Wayne "Dick" Van Dyke is an American actor, comedian, writer, and producer with a career spanning six decades. He is the older brother of Jerry Van Dyke, and father of Barry Van Dyke...

 and Sally Ann Howes

Sally Ann Howes

Sally Ann Howes is a British actress and singer, who currently holds dual British-American citizenship. Her career on stage, screen and television has spanned over six decades...

. "Toot Sweets" is also featured prominently in the multi-award winning stage musical of the same name

Chitty Chitty Bang Bang (musical)

Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, also known as Chitty the Musical, is a stage musical based on the 1968 film produced by Cubby Broccoli. The music and lyrics were written by Richard and Robert Sherman with book by Jeremy Sams.-Productions:...

 which premiered in London

London

London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...

 at the Palladium

London Palladium

The London Palladium is a 2,286 seat West End theatre located off Oxford Street in the City of Westminster. From the roster of stars who have played there and many televised performances, it is arguably the most famous theatre in London and the United Kingdom, especially for musical variety...

 in 2002 and on Broadway

Broadway theatre

Broadway theatre, commonly called simply Broadway, refers to theatrical performances presented in one of the 40 professional theatres with 500 or more seats located in the Theatre District centered along Broadway, and in Lincoln Center, in Manhattan in New York City...

 in 2005 at the newly refurbished Foxwoods Theatre (then the Hilton Theatre). The song was written by Robert B. Sherman

Robert B. Sherman

Robert Bernard Sherman is an American songwriter who specializes in musical films with his brother Richard Morton Sherman...

 and Richard M. Sherman

Richard M. Sherman

Richard Morton Sherman is an American songwriter who specializes in musical film with his brother Robert Bernard Sherman....

 (also known as the Sherman Brothers

Sherman Brothers

The Sherman Brothers are an American songwriting duo that specialize in musical films, made up of Robert B. Sherman and Richard M. Sherman ....

).

The song title is a play on words, a humorous Anglicisation of the French expression "tout de suite", meaning "at once". In the context of the film and stage musical, "Toot Sweets" is about a candy cane that has holes in it, making the candy playable as an edible tin-whistle. Unfortunately for protagonist Caractacus Potts

Caractacus Potts

Caractacus Potts is one of the main characters in the family film Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. He is an eccentric inventor who lives with his twin eight-year-old children, Jeremy & Jemima, and Grandpa Potts, on the Potts' hilltop farm...

, the "Toot Sweets" act like dog whistles, calling all the local canines into the candy factory (not unlike The Pied Piper Of Hamelin

The Pied Piper of Hamelin

The Pied Piper of Hamelin is the subject of a legend concerning the departure or death of a great many children from the town of Hamelin , Lower Saxony, Germany, in the Middle Ages. The earliest references describe a piper, dressed in pied clothing, leading the children away from the town never...

), ruining the sanitary conditions of the factory and turning love interest Truly

Truly Scrumptious

Truly Scrumptious is a fictional character in the 1968 film Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, based on the children's novel of the same name by Ian Fleming.She does not appear in the book. In the film the character is portrayed by singer/actress Sally Ann Howes....

's father against him.

Other meanings

In the late 1960's, Mattel

Mattel

Mattel, Inc. is the world's largest toy company based on revenue. The products it produces include Fisher Price, Barbie dolls, Hot Wheels and Matchbox toys, Masters of the Universe, American Girl dolls, board games, and, in the early 1980s, video game consoles. The company's name is derived from...

 sold a toy called "Toot Sweets". It was a device that molded Tootsie Rolls into whistles.

External sources

• Sherman, Robert B. Walt's Time: from before to beyond
  Walt's Time: from before to beyond
  Walt's Time: from before to beyond is a 252-page autobiographic, full color book by Robert B. Sherman and Richard M. Sherman. It was edited by Imagineers Bruce Gordon, David Mumford and Jeff Kurtti and was published in 1998 by Camphor Tree Publishers who are out of Santa Clarita, California...
  
  . Santa Clarita: Camphor Tree Publishers, 1998.
• Random House's Mavens' Word of the Day