What Does the Term “Song and Dance” Mean and How Did the Idiom For a Misleading Sales Pitch Originate?

During the days of travelling vaudeville shows, there were featured stars, and there were fillers.

The fillers were the comics who were hired to keep the audience amused by telling jokes within a song and dance routine until the next headliner was ready to come on stage.

Since then, any well-rehearsed routine that is intended to divert your attention from what you came to see has been called a “song and dance.”