Audio Play / Omaha!

Whatta they got in "Omaha!" that they never have in other musicals?

Omaha! is a recorded musical comedy with book, lyrics and music by Stan Freberg. Originally a six-minute, 38-second radio commercial for the Butter-Nut Coffee Company of Omaha, the original cast recording was issued on an EP in 1958.

The plot is simple: Biff (Freberg) loves Julie (Frances Osborne), and Julie loves Omaha, but their tender duets of love (for each other and for the town) are interrupted by Eustace K. Butter-Nut (Byron Kane), the only man ever to leave Omaha.

The musical numbers include an overture, four songs and a last-act finale, which is impressive for a show only ten minutes long.

Tracklist (9:33 minutes)

Side One

1. "Overture"
2. "Whatta They Got In Omaha?"
3. "Omaha Moon"
4. "Omaha"

Side Two

1. "I Look In Your Face"
2. "Reprise"

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These tropes can be found in Omaha!:

• Adaptation Expansion: The EP version eliminates the Butter-Nut Coffee plugs from the commercial version, but also adds a few minutes of new material, including an additional song ("I Look in Your Face").
• Arc Words: The word "Omaha".
• Crowd Song: People in Omaha are cursed to hold their hands up in the air and sing choruses.
• Deliberately Monochrome: The album cover is in black-and-white.
• Face on the Cover: Freberg is pictured between the crowd.
• Jingle: The reprise finale of the radio commercial:
  Whatta they got in Butter-Nut
  That they haven't got in other coffees?
• Miniscule Rocking: A musical condensed under 10 minutes length.
• No Indoor Voice: Biff and the other locals, parodying the tendency of performers on original cast albums to not tone down their theatrical projecting in the recording studio.
• One-Word Title: "Omaha", not mentioning "Overture" and "Reprise".
• Packaged as Other Medium: The cover is done in the style of a Broadway musical album, but is in fact a parody of it.
• Pun-Based Title: "Omaha!" is obviously a take-off of Oklahoma!
• Questioning Title?: "Whatta They Got In Omaha?"
• Reprise Medley: The finale is made up of several earlier songs with different lyrics—in particular, singing "Butter-Nut" instead of "Omaha."
• Sdrawkcab Name:
  • Saying Butter-Nut's name backwards breaks the curse on Omaha (which spelled backwards is "Ahamo!").
  • There's also a mention of Ak-Sar-Ben, the Real Life civic group in Omaha whose name is Nebraska spelled backwards.
• Spelling Song: The Oklahoma!-like title song spells "O-M-A-H-A" at the end.
• That Reminds Me of a Song: Lampshaded: "Try to keep from bursting into song every time I ask a question, will you?"

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