Ah, The Novelty Of It All (JAGUARDOG WO) Apr 11 '07 (Updated Apr 27 '07)    Write an essay on this topic. Tweet Popular Products in Music The Dirtchamber Sessions, Vol. 1 by The Prodigy From $11 Jersey Boys [Original Broadway Cast Recording] by Original Broadway Cast From $8 The Bottom Line Many express reviews have sacrificed their brevity to become a part of a much bigger musical picture. For as long as I can remember, I have enjoyed music that has had a good sense of humor. It was just as important to me to sing along with "She Loves You" as it was to listen to music that appealed to my very young sense of humor. That meant singing along with songs just because they sounded silly to me. Songs that are simple and silly are a good way to get anyone interested in music. One of the songs I first remember hearing was Rolf Harris's 1963 hit, "Tie Me Kangaroo Down Sport." Harris's pleasant Australian accent was paired with a nice story about a dying man trying to make sure his animals were in good hands after his passing. Around that time, Allan Sherman added words to the classical piece "Dance Of The Hours" to tell a tale of summer camp woe in "Hello Muddah, Hello Faddah." On the airwaves, I could enjoy The Alvin Show about singing the singing group the Chipmunks and their manager, all of whom were voiced by Ross Bagdasarian, Sr.. Their unusual sound made its way to vinyl, and hits with the child-friendly songs "Alvin's Harmonica" and the holiday favorite "The Chipmunk Song." The Chipmunks later reworked "The Chipmunk Song" with Canned Heat to create the wild "Christmas Boogie." The Ran-Dells made the thought of other intelligent life fun in "Martian Hop," and even added martian sound effects. Extraterrestrials were also the subject of the Sheb Wooley hit "The Purple People Eater," who is nowhere near as menacing as the title might suggest. The biggest name in novelty songs in my youth was Ray Stevens. One of my favorite novelty songs of his was a update of Edgar Rice Burroughs's most famous character in "Gitarzan." He later had one of his biggest hits by injecting humor into a fad with "The Streak." Cute rhymes were the subject of the Shirley Ellis hit "The Name Game," though some might not want to play this game with anyone named Chuck. MAD magazine occasionally had special issues with plastic discs inside. The one that got the most play in my house was the Dellwoods song, "It's A Gas," which features a lot of oral output. The Muppets also made a little music during my first decade of life. The song "Mahna Mahna" may have originally been featured in an erotic Italian film, but a cover of it by the Jim Henson creations Mahna Mahna and the Snowths made this a fun sing-along that required no translation. The Royal Guardsmen made a number of songs featuring the funny pages' most famous beagle, Snoopy, including a song about his most famous nemesis in "Snoopy Vs. The Red Baron." The Irish Rovers hit the charts with a delightful and poignant tale of an animal who missed Noah's Ark in "The Unicorn." Even regular hit artists weren't afraid to get a little silly on record. Getting silly, in fact, got Johnny Cash his biggest hit with "A Boy Named Sue," about a boy who was tough because of his name. Cash even had another hit several years later about an ingenious auto worker who gets a car "One Piece At A Time." The band who won popularity, in part, because of their sense of humor was the Beatles. Their sense of humor showed on "You Know My Name (Look Up The Number)," a track that was originally the B-side of "Let It Be" let each of the Fab Four be singing comedians, with John playing the MC and Ringo, Paul, and George taking a verse to sing that line in a unique way. An even longer version of this song, where the Beatles try ska in one section, is in the second volume of the Anthology series. Beatles fan club members were the first to experience the band's humor in their Christmas messages, which were released annually from 1963-69. A favorite Christmas message of mine was made in 1965, where the men were in an obviously cheery and song-filled mood, and John even sings the opening line of the Four Tops' hit, "It's The Same Old Song." The Who also flashed senses of humor in their music. "Boris The Spider" is a number not intended for the arachnophobic, while their concept album The Who Sell Out includes the ad-like "Heinz Baked Beans," which answers the musical question "What's for tea?" When the seventies came, I came to know new comic stylings. One of the styles I came to know was that of Dickie Goodman, who used snippets of hit records to conduct wacky interviews, and had been doing that since the 1950s. The seventies saw Goodman put that style to good comic effect on topical tracks like "Campaign '72" and "Energy Crisis '74." He scored his biggest hit of the seventies, though, when he interviewed a box office star on the 1975 hit, "Mr. Jaws." It was also the decade where the hippie comedy duo of Cheech (Marin) & (Tommy) Chong took a comic look at youth culture. They combined skit ability with musical ability on their highest charting single with "Earache My Eye," which depicts a teenager who'd rather stay home and listen to his records than go to school. Humorist Shel Silverstein wrote and recorded a few songs during his career as an author. One of his best known hits became a hit for Dr. Hook & The Medicine Show, singing about delusions of success on the song "The Cover Of Rolling Stone." Around this time, Monty Python's Flying Circus made its mark with its absurd sense of humor, building the absurdity with every verse in their song about a most unusual man they feted in "The Lumberjack Song." National Lampoon was not only a popular humor magazine, but their humor also spawned recordings. Among my favorites from their recorded humor is "Deteriorata," a hilarious send-up of a life-affirming poem from the 1920s. The Buoys were a one-hit wonder who performed a song written by Rupert (Escape - The Pina Colada Song) Holmes, and they turned cannibalism into a hit with the tale of "Timothy." Other artists stepped up and delivered silly songs. Singer and actor Loudon Wainwright has made many albums over the years, but his most famous song is a song about an encounter drivers should fear more than a fender bender in "Dead Skunk." Jim Stafford had a string of hits that combined his country roots with a sense of humor. He combined a childhood prank with romantic attraction in "Spiders And Snakes," sang of a romantic triangle in "My Girl Bill," and recalls an encounter with Mother Nature's substances in "Wildwood Weed." C. W. McCall combined the interest in citizens band radios and the chance to get over on the police in "Convoy." Reunion scored their only hit by naming singers and songs in rapid-fire succession in "Life Is A Rock (But The Radio Rolled Me)." In fact, both of Chicago's AM radio giants of the time - WLS and WCFL - played special versions with their call letters. Jimmy Castor had hits about the comic escapades of cavemen in both "Troglodyte" and "The Bertha Butt Boogie." Earlier in his career, he scored his first comic hit with the Latin-flavored soul novelty, "Hey Leroy, Your Mama's Calling You," with nicely timed breaks in the lyrics. To show that everything old is new again, Bobby "Boris" Pickett charted once again with his look at the secret lives of monsters in "Monster Mash." I also discovered a parody song from the previous decade in the Detergents only hit about a bad cleaner in "Leader Of The Laundromat," which made fun of the Shangri-Las hit "Leader Of The Pack." The seventies were a decade where I first discovered Frank Zappa as well. He combined musicianship and social criticism with songs like "Take Your Clothes Off When You Dance," which made fun of a hippie culture that estranged itself from society. He also had a lighter sense of humor, as he made fun of break-up songs on "Go Cry On Somebody Else's Shoulder," and later teamed with daughter Moon on looking at consumer culture in "Valley Girl." Other rockers who gained notice with novelty records include Chuck Berry, who had his biggest hit with the double entendre song "My-Ding-A-Ling," and the B-52's showed new wave could have a sense of humor when they unleashed "Rock Lobster." Aerosmith resurrected a fifties double entendre song when they covered the music-loving "Big Ten Inch Record." Reunion scored their only hit by rattling off the names of many famous rockers in "Life Is A Rock (But The Radio Rolled Me)." Rock and novelty combined on the big screen with the cult hit The Rocky Horror Picture Show, which combined rock, science fiction, and gender bending. Among the many memorable songs this movie produced was "Time Warp," a song about a dance which combined all three of the movie's elements. In 1971, a novelty record lover named Barrett Hansen began his own radio show under his professional name of Dr. Demento. Among my visits to the smogberry trees of Demento's radio landscape, I discovered the work of earlier humorists. It was there where I first heard Jimmy Drake, who performed as Nervous Norvus. His biggest hit was about a perpetual reckless driver in the 1956 song "Transfusion." Ruth Wallis, whose double entendre songs became the subject of the musical Boobs, also made the rounds of Demento's show. She sings of her love of sailing (in more ways than one) in both "Hawaiian Lei Song" and "The Dinghy Song." A risque song from 1947 became a 1975 hit for Benny Bell, who conveniently replaces a pejorative word with "Shaving Cream." I discovered three of my favorite novelty artists as a result of Demento's shows. Tom Lehrer eventually focused his career on teaching, but he showed he could put his smarts to music as he sings the periodic table in "The Elements." He also poked fun at sentimental situations with tracks such as "The Masochism Tango" and "A Christmas Carol." Stan Freberg has enjoyed success as both a recording artist and an ad man. He poked fun at both worlds with the help of Daws Butler and Billy May as they recorded their own twist on the Christmas song, "Nuttin' For Christmas," about a very bad little boy. No holiday is complete unless I make "Green Chri$tma$" a part of my holiday listening. It's a funny and perceptive update of A Christmas Carol that takes place at an ad agency. Spike Jones made a career of novelty records, including the enduring Christmas tale, "All I Want For Christmas," about an accident-prone boy and his wish. Country and opera became a highlight of clashing musical cultures on the Jones song "Pal-Yat-Chee." The humor of these songs has endured longer than I've been alive. Demento also provided a forum for more modern musical humorists. It was on the show where I first heard Weird Al Yankovic, who got a big start in his career of musical parody when the Doctor played his demo tape of "My Bologna," which added funny words to the Knack hit, "My Sharona." He's probably best known for his Michael Jackson parody songs, especially "Eat It," which is sung to the tune "Beat It." "Eat It" is a loving tribute to any parent who couldn't get their children to eat their supper, and to the kids who heard endless guilt trips about complaining. Many of Demento's favorites made their way to Rhino Records compilations. Rhino, though, released some fine novelty records of their own during the seventies and eighties. The first Rhino artist was one-time Zappa protege Wild Man Fischer, who promised to create a new song for a dime while performing on the Sunset Strip. During his association with Zappa, Fischer put his wild, screaming style to offbeat effect in "Circle," about a man who's always one step ahead of everybody else. Once with Rhino, he put his autobiography to song on "My Name Is Larry."He would later work with Barnes & Barnes (aka Billy Mumy and Robert Haimer), who created strange and amusing ditties of their own, most notably a song that points out the many uses of "Fish Heads." One-time pro wrestler Fred Blassie also recorded for Rhino, bringing a wrestler's bluster to a song about the dreaded life form known as "Pencil Neck Geek."The Temple City Kazoo Orchestra went wild when they hummed their way through a cover version of the Led Zeppelin hit "Whole Lotta Love." Comedian Julie Brown gave the teen tragedy song a darkly comic update with "The Homecoming Queen's Got A Gun." Bob Wayne was the leader of Big Daddy, a band that gave songs of the seventies, eighties, and nineties tunes a fifties sound. Their Pat Boone-like take on Bruce Springsteen's "Dancing In The Dark" was popular in England, but my favorite involved the group giving Everly Brothers-style harmonies to the Rick James hit, "Super Freak." Rhino also resurrected many of the obscure novelties by obtaining the rights to release them. One of them was the very bright and jazzy 1958 Burt Bacharach song, "The Blob," performed by the Five Blobs, and included in the movie of the same name. The trio of (Dave) Lambert, (Jon) Hendricks, and (Annie) Ross used expressive and humorous harmonies to gain audiences of the fifties and sixties on tracks like "Halloween Spooks" and "Twisted." The label also resurrected some of the campiest music celebrities ever recorded. I cannot imagine what possessed Mitch Miller to take a stab at the John Lennon hit, "Give Peace A Chance." Miller's singers seem absolutely clueless about the meaning of the lyrics, especially when they mispronounce the words "Hare Krishna." Both Sebastian Cabot and William Shatner took turns mutilating Bob Dylan. Cabot sarcastically talks his way through "Like A Rolling Stone" while a jazz clarinet and xylophone play softly in the background. Shatner went totally over the top as he told the story of "Mr. Tambourine Man." Years later, Shatner hammed it up to much better effect as he teamed with Joe Jackson to do a humorous take on the Pulp song "Common People." Other comedians have put their humorous personas to music. Steve Martin may once have been a wild and crazy guy, but he showed a wild and crazy interest in Egyptian history in "King Tut." Rodney Dangerfield was the guy who got no respect, but his jokes were mixed with a dance beat on the single "Rappin' Rodney." Will Smith has been a hit on TV and in movies, but he was once the Fresh Prince. With Jazzy Jeff, he rapped about the problems of being a kid in "Parents Just Don't Understand." Bill Hicks was a stand-up known for a cynical and abrasive wit, but he was also musician who put some of life's frustrations to music in "Chicks Dig Jerks." Comedians Christopher Guest, Michael McKean, and Harry Shearer were the members of two different comic groups. As heavy metal airheads Spinal Tap, they told a historically inaccurate account of "Stonehenge." As the Folksmen, they gave a gentle sense of humor to folk music, and even did an interesting cover of the Rolling Stones hit, "Start Me Up." Jack Black is a comedian who loves to rock. With Kyle Gass, Black brings a comic swagger to his music as Tenacious D on tracks like "Tribute," which aims to be the greatest song ever written. Without Gass, Black teamed up with his young co-stars in The School Of Rock to give a youthful touch to their cover of the AC/DC song, "Long Way To The Top." I also enjoy songs that celebrate the love of sports. Cheech & Chong sang of a young man who always had hoop dreams in "Basketball Jones." Johnny Wakelin And The Kinshasa Band paid tribute to the power and speed of a great boxer in "Black Superman - Muhammad Ali." Steve Goodman was a lifelong fan of the Chicago Cubs, and he sang the frustration of many a Cub fan in the story of a last will and testament in "A Dying Cub Fan's Last Request." Ironically, Goodman passed away just before his beloved team made their first post-season appearance in nearly four decades. The 1985 NFL season will be remembered for the Chicago Bears' run to a championship, as well as a run on the charts with a tribute to their teamwork in "The Super Bowl Shuffle." Other novelty favorites of mine have run the gamut of musical genres. The Chicago band Jump 'N The Saddle specialized in folk music, but they also had a love of the Three Stooges that became the subject of their hit "The Curly Shuffle." The punk rock band Circle Jerks showed their disdain for a number of syrupy songs, such as "Afternoon Delight" and "Love Will Keep Us Together," and thrashed them in a medley entitled "Golden Shower Of Hits." The metal band Anthrax combined metal and rap in their tribute to testosterone, "I'm The Man." Dread Zeppelin covered Led Zeppelin sings with Elvis impersonator Greg "Tortelvis" Tortell and a reggae beat, which created an interesting sound on covers that included the comically inspired "Stairway To Heaven." John Linnell and John Flansburgh named their band, They Might Be Giants, after a seventies movie, and have created alternative music with laughs. "Ana Ng" is a grandiose romantic fantasy about two people who have never met. They also have put their comic touch to cover songs, such as their joyful take on the Four Lads' hit, "Constantinople." Many other songs qualify as novelties, and like quite a few of them as well. I will always get a good laugh at Zager & Evans' hit "In The Year 2525" and Tony Bellus's somewhat forgotten hit "Robbin' The Cradle," even though most listeners of these songs won't share my view. Most will take these songs seriously, though I don't share that point of view. I just can't help but laugh at the outrageous situations these songs portray. Instrumentals like Al Caiola's "Bonanza," Gene Roddenberry's "Star Trek," and Chuck Mangione's "Feels So Good" work fine in that format, but each had lyrics that were, thankfully, omitted from these tracks (A famous blooper reel, though, shows the stars of Bonanza singing the song). The lyrics can be found in print, however, and are good for their chuckle value. I have always loved a quality tune, and quality novelties are no exception. My favorites have come from many sources and many eras, and I hope I will discover more as long as I can listen to music. This has been my entry in the Top 50 Novelty Songs Write-Off hosted by JAGUARDOG (Sorry, Ron, I lost count, but I have at least 50 in there). For rules and more novelties, visit this link: http://www.epinions.com/content_4979269764 Thank you Ron.

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