Songfacts®:

• This song is based on a classic vaudeville routine. In the most common versions, a man meets a stranger. The stranger recounts a story of how he found out his best friend has run off with his girl. He then describes, in great detail, how he catches up to them at Niagara Falls and strangles his best friend. In his tale-telling frenzy, he begins to actually strangle the innocent man. Once snapped out of his rage, the stranger apologizes profusely, but in a short amount of time, the man says "Niagara Falls," and the Stranger snaps into his frenzy again with the immortal line "NIAGARA FALLS! Slowly I turned... step-by-step... inch-by-inch...!" The pattern repeats itself as the Man goes to extreme lengths to prevent himself from saying the trigger words (or, at least, to prevent harm coming to him).
• Abbott and Costello performed this bit in several different forms with trigger words "Niagara Falls," "Pokomoko" and, in one instance, both "Susquehanna Hat Company" and "Bagel Street." Lucille Ball performed it with a clown in an episode of I Love Lucy with the trigger word "Martha." The Three Stooges played it as "Niagara Falls" using their trademark slaps and pokes and included a final scene where the best friend arrives and claims that HE slowly turned and attacked the stranger, with the end result that both the stranger and the best friend pummel the innocent man. >>

  Suggestion credit:
  David - Mesa, AZ, for above 2