Chu-Chi Face Lyrics – Chitty Chitty Bang Bang

Song Overview

Personal Review

“Chu-Chi Face” plays like a sugar-coated trap: plush waltz, pet names, and then… booby traps everywhere. Read the lyrics and it’s baby talk; hear them with the picture and it’s a marital duel in silk gloves. The number is a comic detonator inside Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, a lilting tune that sells danger with a smile. One-sentence snapshot: lovers coo in 3-4 time while plotting each other’s creative demise.

Song Meaning and Annotations

The scene is a joke with fangs. Baron and Baroness Bomburst serenade each other, all dimples and endearments, while the Baron sets off a rolling gallery of lethal gags. The contrast is the point: love-language as camouflage for mutual loathing. Onscreen it lands as farce, but the subtext is crisp - some relationships run on ritual while the floor keeps opening.

Musically it’s a pastiche waltz - light brass, courtly sway, and an operetta wink. The stage revival leaned into that lineage, critics calling it a nod to Lehár-style operetta, which suits the aristocratic nonsense of Vulgaria. The rhythm’s sway softens every barb, so the lyrics can stay silly while the staging stays savage.

Historically it sits among the Sherman Brothers’ trickster numbers - cheerful on the surface, sly in the middle. Irwin Kostal’s orchestral polish keeps the edges smooth, which is why the danger reads as comedy and not horror. The result is a perfect family-film tightrope: kids giggle, adults clock the daggers.

“You’re my little Chu-chi face… my coo-chi, coo-chi, woo-chi little Chu-chi face”

Baby-talk as armor. It lets the pair say nothing and everything at once - affection as performance, concealment as chorus.

“Together we’re a Chu-chi, woo-chi, ooo-chi, coo-chi pair”

The rhyme-chain is musical slapstick. In context, the “pair” are anything but - the set keeps trying to split them in half.

“Whatever you may ask becomes my happy task”

Submission, sung sweetly, while the mechanical traps argue otherwise. The line works because the orchestra never raises its voice, just keeps the smile fixed.

Creation history

Writers: Richard M. Sherman and Robert B. Sherman. Orchestration and music supervision: Irwin Kostal. The duet appears in the 1968 film and later migrated intact to the stage musical - with Brian Blessed and Nichola McAuliffe leading the London Palladium production in 2002, and a Broadway run in 2005.

Verse Highlights

Verse 1

It opens with pet names piled high - an avalanche of syllables that practically trip over the beat. The language feels improvised, which makes the timing of each trap gag even funnier. The joke depends on that cozy rhythm.

Chorus

“Chu-chi, woo-chi, ooo-chi, coo-chi” turns the hook into a tongue-twister. The chorus invites the audience to hum along while the set tries to off somebody. It’s cartoon logic set to a ballroom step.

Middle section

Promises of devotion arrive just as the next danger whirs to life. The number keeps the contradictions tight - the sweeter the harmony, the sharper the prop. It all resolves with a picture-book cadence that leaves the dagger out of frame.

Key Facts

• Featured: Gert Fröbe (Baron Bomburst) and Anna Quayle (Baroness Bomburst) onscreen; orchestra supervised by Irwin Kostal.
• Producer/Conductor: Irwin Kostal.
• Composer-Lyricists: Richard M. Sherman, Robert B. Sherman.
• Release Date: December 17, 1968.
• Genre: show tune with operetta-flavored waltz; comic duet.
• Instruments: orchestral waltz palette - strings, woodwinds, brass band colors, light percussion.
• Label: United Artists Records (original soundtrack).
• Mood: sugary, satiric, faintly menacing.
• Length: approx 2:20 on expanded soundtrack; a shorter reprise appears as “Chu-Chi Face Waltz.”
• Track #: 13 on the original LP sequence.
• Language: English.
• Album: Chitty Chitty Bang Bang - Original Cast Soundtrack.
• Music style: light operetta pastiche in 3-4 time.
• Poetic meter: playful trochaic bursts over waltz accents.
• Notable revivals: London Palladium cast (2002) and Broadway company (2005) include a recorded version led by Brian Blessed and Nichola McAuliffe.

Questions and Answers

Where does the scene take place in the story?

Inside Baron Bomburst’s castle in the toy-banning kingdom of Vulgaria, during a comic interlude that hides slapstick peril under polite melody.

Is “Chu-Chi Face” meant as a straight love song?

No - it’s a parody of sugary operetta duets. The sweetness is a mask while the action shows a relationship of convenience and competition.

Did Gert Fröbe and Anna Quayle do the singing?

They perform it onscreen. Fröbe’s English dialogue was often dubbed in his films, and sources note Michael Collins dubbed him in several roles including Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, though the film credits present the duet to the characters.

Does the number appear in the stage musical?

Yes. The 2002 London production and 2005 Broadway run retain it - critics highlighted the Lehár-like pastiche and the Baroness’s comic command in the duet.

Any pop-culture afterlife beyond the show?

An advertising pastiche retitled “My Fluffy One” adapted the idea for a Yoplait Whips spot. The stage cast also recorded a version for commercial release.

Awards and Chart Positions

The song itself was not a singles-chart item, but the original soundtrack album reached No. 10 on the UK Official Albums Chart in February 1969. The film’s song score earned major-season attention the same year, with nominations at the Academy Awards and Golden Globes for the title song and score.

How to Sing?

Think comic waltz with aristocratic vowels. Keep a buoyant 1-2-3 pulse, letting the stress fall lightly on “Chu” and “woo.” The Baron part sits well for a lyrical baritone that can speak-sing crisp consonants; the Baroness wants a nimble mezzo who can flirt with a straight tone before blossoming on cadences. The trick is diction - ride the nonsense words with clean attacks so the jokes land, then elongate vowels at phrase-ends to telegraph mock-romance. If you stage it, stagger breath around the trap gags so physical business never truncates the rhyme.

Songs Exploring Themes of Playfully Perilous Love

“Anything You Can Do” - Annie Get Your Gun. Competitive love turned into a sport. Each boast is a dart, and the orchestration treats the couple like fencers. Compared to “Chu-Chi Face,” the danger here is purely social - pride, not trapdoors - yet both share a grin that hides the scorekeeping. You end up rooting for the tie because the duel is the romance.

“Sue Me” - Guys and Dolls. A lovers’ quarrel built from legalese and lived-in resignation. The tempo slouches, the vowels swell, and the couple bargains their way back to each other through complaint. While “Chu-Chi Face” cloaks hostility in sugar, “Sue Me” admits the bruise and finds tenderness anyway. Both duets show affection as negotiation - contracts written in melody.

“A Little Priest” - Sweeney Todd. Macabre chemistry lesson in waltz time. The pair test each other’s taste for wickedness with puns so bad they loop back to brilliant. It’s the dark mirror of “Chu-Chi Face”: same 3-4 lilt, but the punchlines arrive with cutlery. Where the Bombursts play at peril, Sweeney and Lovett make the peril the point.