February 20 is National Cherry Pie Day.

Why on this date? Maybe because it’s close to Washington’s birthday. You know the tale: The boy who would one day grow up to become the father of our country chopped down his father’s cherry tree, and when confronted, ’fessed up to it, saying “I cannot tell a lie.” More likely he said, “I want some cherry pie” and someone heard him wrong.

This 1960s commercial for Fluffo shortening shows us a nice-looking cherry pie while a woman sings, “I can bake a cherry pie in a twinkling of an eye…”

1960s Fluffo commercial

The little bit of singing in that commercial sounds to me like a variant of the folk song “Billy Boy.”

Can she bake cherry pie, Billy Boy,
Billy Boy?
Can she bake cherry pie, tell me Billy.
She can bake a cherry pie,
There’s a twinkle in her eye.
She’s a young thing
And cannot leave her mother.

I’ve always thought that Neil Diamond’s “Cherry, Cherry,” should be used in a commercial for something cherry flavored. Cherry pie would work. Don’t you think so?

Neil Diamond sings “Cherry, Cherry” and “Solitary Man” on the musical variety show Where the Action Is (October 6, 1966)

“She got the way to move me, Cherry, she got the way to groove me!”

By the way, that’s Mark Lindsey from Paul Revere and the Raiders introducing Neil in that video. Glad no one fell off those rocks—they look slippery!

Have a happy National Cherry Pie Day!

RELATED ARTICLE

• National Cherry Pie Day (nationaldaycalendar.com)