Composer: Abie Rotenberg
Album: Up Up and Away — Marvelous Midos Machine Volume I
Year: 1984
“The inspiration was definitely my own children” Abie Rotenberg reminisces about his Marvelous Midos Machine series. He can’t remember the specifics anymore—which kid spilled the milk on the kitchen floor who thought it was fair to even up the score and who first kvetched in the toy store. But it was the youthful antics and worldview of his children and their friends that were the catalyst and the inspiration for the classic children’s tapes that have had staying power for three decades.
As for Volume IV released 25 years after Rotenberg first introduced Jewish children to Dr. Midos Shnooky Dizzy and Dr. Doomstein and continuing where Volume III left off he says that “I never thought I would revisit the Marvelous Midos Machine — I thought we’d pretty much covered the subject in the first three tapes. But once my own children grew up and the eineklach came into the picture my kids — who are parents themselves — came to me with suggestions.”
Back in the 1980s as a young father Abie came to the conclusion that middos tovos can never be emphasized quite enough. With musician Moshe Yess as his partner (Yess passed away in 2011 just before Volume IV his final collaboration with Rotenberg was released) “we created the Midos Machine concept the story and the characters then we began a daily chavrusa shaft to hammer out all the details. We wrote all the dialogue for Volume I together weighing each word.”
