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The Muffin Man is a traditional nursery rhyme or children's song with English origins. The lyrics are as follows, or similar:

Do you know the Muffin Man? The Muffin Man, the Muffin Man. Do you know the Muffin Man, Who lives on Drury Lane?

Drury Lane is a street in London, also notable for its theatre. Victorian households had many of their fresh foods delivered; muffins would be delivered door-to-door by a muffin man. The "muffins" were the product known in much of the English-speaking world today as English muffins, not the cupcake-shaped American variety. It could also refer to the darker era when Drury Lane was lined with brothels.

The Young Lady's Book, from 1888, describes the song in the context of a game:

The first player turns to the one next her, and to some sing-song tune exclaims:

"Do you know the muffin man, the muffin man, the muffin man?

Do you know the muffin man who lives in Drury Lane?"

The person addressed replies to the same tune:

"Yes, I know the muffin man, the muffin man, the muffin man;

Oh, yes, I know the muffin man, who lives in Drury Lane."

Upon this they both exclaim:

"Then two of us know the muffin man, the muffin man,"

Modern-day references

• Dreamworks' Shrek featured a reference to the popular song, in the form of an interrogation between Lord Farquaad and Gingy, as follows:

Lord Farquaad: Run, run, run, as fast as you can; you can't catch me, I'm the Gingerbread Man!

Gingy: You're a monster.

Lord Farquaad: I'm not the monster here, you are. You and the rest of that fairy tale trash, poisoning my perfect
world. Now tell me! Where are the others?

Gingy: Eat me!

Lord Farquaad: I've tried to be fair with you creatures, but now my patience has reached its end!
TELL ME, OR I'LL ---

Gingy: No, not the buttons! Not my gumdrop buttons!

Lord Farquaad: All right, then, who's hiding them?

Gingy: Okay, I'll tell you. Do you know the muffin man?

Lord Farquaad: The muffin man?

Gingy: The muffin man.

Lord Farquaad: Yes, I know the muffin man. W-Who lives down Drury Lane?

Gingy: Well, she's married to the muffin man...

Lord Farquaad: The muffin man?

Gingy: The muffin man!

Lord Farquaad: She's married to the muffin man...

He later appears as a character in Shrek 2, which shows his home near a sign for Drury Lane where the muffin man makes a giant version of Gingy who wreaks havoc.

• The Jellyman in Jasper Fforde's The Big Over Easy is supposed to be a reference to the Muffin Man as well.

• Frank Zappa and Captain Beefheart performed a song ("Muffin Man") apparently inspired by the nursery rhyme on the album Bongo Fury.

• The S.O.B.s episode of Arrested Development features George Bluth's habit of poisoning teachers who "poison" his children's minds against him. While he claims to have only done this twice, one or more copycats poisoned another 23 teachers, and the media dubbed the perpetrator "The Muffin Man". In a flashback to the 70s (when the crimes took place), anchorman John Beard begins his newscast with a reference to the nursery rhyme, saying "Do you know the Muffin Man? There’s a reward in it if you do."

• In the movie Jaws, Chief Brody's son Shaun is singing "The Muffin Man" while making sandcastles on the beach during the attack on Alex - the boy on the raft.

References

1. Kiple, Kenneth F and Ornelas, Kriemhild Coneè (2000). The Cambridge World History of Food. Cambridge University Press. p. 1224
2. Mackarness, Matilda Anne Planche (1888) The Young Lady's Book: A Manual of Amusements, Exercises, Studies, and Pursuits. London: George Routledge and Sons. pp. 278–280. Full book from Google Books.
3. Bongo Fury - Muffin Man

• Nursery rhymes