Comedy albums

[Jazzjet]

Firesign Theater was a product of Pacifica Radio, when I was working there--I never found them funny, too strained.

Since we have some of our British members on this thread, I wonder if any of you recall two funny songs that I used to hear on London juke boxes back in the mid-Sixties?

"Nobody Loves a Fairy When She's Forty"

and (don't recall the title) one whose lyrics began with "When you're feeling glum, stick a finger up your bum, and laugh, laugh, laugh...."

Anyone here recall something like that?

'Nobody Loves a Fairy' was probably by Billie Cotton ( strangely popular via the BBC ) and Tessie O'Shea. Originally an old music hall song.

As for ' When you're feeling glum, stick a finger up your bum...', I'm not sure but sounds pretty similar to Always Look On The Bright Side of Life by Monty Python but that was from the 70s. Could have been Peter Cook and Dudley Moore? Sounds like you went to some interesting pubs!

[burning dog]

Hello chaps

hope you are keeping well MG

The fairy one was definintely and old music hall song that I think Shelia Steafel used to perform at the old Players Theatre,(but I think that record would have beento early for her) which used to recreate Victorian Music Hall, much more bawdy and "common" than the Good old days TV programme . The bum one does indeed sound like Pete & Dud.

My dad had both those early Sellers records " Songs for Swingin Sellers" was a 12 " I think and the other a 10". Swinging has a song song by Matt Munro imitating Sinatra. My feet are swinging/ My head is spinning/ You got me dangling on a line - it went. I think the earlier 10"inch was slightly better as it had fewer songs.

One of my favourite comedy moments ever is of one of those discs, the sketch with the memoirs of a real toff tory minister totally f**king brilliant.

Ps. There is also a record called "Bridge on the River Wye" that has Milligan and Peter Cook and some others.

Edited July 7, 2008 by burning dog

[Christiern]

Why do I associate Spy magazine with one ("Glum," I think) of these songs? Anyone heard of Spy?

BTW, I have a wonderful tape made by Moore and Cook around 3 AM on a 1965 morning, when they dropped in on my midnight show. With Moore at the piano, Cook does 2 narratives, one in which he describes a gathering of the famous ("Nancy Cunard, perched upon the shoulders of the King of Sweden") at an estate. The other is the common room reminiscences of a school mate of T.E. Lawrence ("I still hear his girlish giggle" and "he had about him the look of an unmade Bedouin"). Very funny stuff.

Jazzjet: "Sounds like you went to some interesting pubs!"

I did--my BBC associates put Fodor to shame.

[Larry Kart]

"he had about him the look of an unmade Bedouin"

[BruceH]

Why do I associate Spy magazine with one ("Glum," I think) of these songs? Anyone heard of Spy?

I used to read Spy back in the 80's; was quite a fan, in fact. It took a sharp dip in quality in about 1990 or '91 as I recall, and folded not too long thereafter. Bits of business were copied by all sorts of other magazines, though.

[Jazzmoose]

Any Firesign Theatre fans around? I have a fair number of their albums - both by the group and and by individual members - but haven't listened to them in years.

edit - Have no idea what I'd think of them now. Don't think I have any desire to listen.

Well...anyone who doesn't have the signature function turned off won't believe me if I deny all knowledge, so I'll 'fess up. I'm definitely a fan. Some of their stuff is hit or miss, and I'll admit I haven't heard that much of their recent stuff, but of course Don't Crush That Dwarf is a classic, and How Can You Be in Two Places at Once should be considered a holy relic in my opinion. Given a choice between that LP and my jazz LPs, well, I'd probably better not say which I'd go with on this board...

Naturally, my favorite thing about Firesign is the way their recordings hold up to repeated listenings, something not many comedy albums can handle. And as a caveat, I must admit that I fell in love with their work back in my dope smoking days...thank goodness I wasn't a James Joyce fan as well at the time!

Edited July 11, 2008 by Jazzmoose

[Christiern]

Sorry, I had it all wrong. The British satirical magazine that I associated with those songs was not called "Spy"--it was Private Eye. Does that ring a bell among our friends across the sea?

[Jazzjet]

Sorry, I had it all wrong. The British satirical magazine that I associated with those songs was not called "Spy"--it was Private Eye. Does that ring a bell among our friends across the sea?

'Private Eye' is still going strong, if not quite the cult it was in the 60s. It really came to the fore at the time of the Profumo/Keeler scandals ( 1963 ) and the rise of The Establishment Club ( part owned by Peter Cook ) and the satire boom. It used to be a 'must read' for the under 30s at the time and exposed a number of juicy scandals.

If I remember rightly it did sometimes have a cover-mounted flexi-disc which could well have had the 'glum' song on it.

[The Magnificent Goldberg]

Sorry, I had it all wrong. The British satirical magazine that I associated with those songs was not called "Spy"--it was Private Eye. Does that ring a bell among our friends across the sea?

'Private Eye' is still going strong, if not quite the cult it was in the 60s. It really came to the fore at the time of the Profumo/Keeler scandals ( 1963 ) and the rise of The Establishment Club ( part owned by Peter Cook ) and the satire boom. It used to be a 'must read' for the under 30s at the time and exposed a number of juicy scandals.

If I remember rightly it did sometimes have a cover-mounted flexi-disc which could well have had the 'glum' song on it.

I still have one of those Private Eye records - "Dear Sir, Is this a record?" But, sad to say, it doesn't contain the Glum song. It does contain Dudley Moore saying, in a voice simultaneously lugubrious and lascivious (nice work if you can get it) "I love that swelling organ sound".

But mentioning it with a capital G, "Round the Horne" (I think it was, but perhaps it was earlier) had Ron and Eth - The Glums. The song may have come from there.

MG

[Jazzjet]

Sorry, I had it all wrong. The British satirical magazine that I associated with those songs was not called "Spy"--it was Private Eye. Does that ring a bell among our friends across the sea?

'Private Eye' is still going strong, if not quite the cult it was in the 60s. It really came to the fore at the time of the Profumo/Keeler scandals ( 1963 ) and the rise of The Establishment Club ( part owned by Peter Cook ) and the satire boom. It used to be a 'must read' for the under 30s at the time and exposed a number of juicy scandals.

If I remember rightly it did sometimes have a cover-mounted flexi-disc which could well have had the 'glum' song on it.

I still have one of those Private Eye records - "Dear Sir, Is this a record?" But, sad to say, it doesn't contain the Glum song. It does contain Dudley Moore saying, in a voice simultaneously lugubrious and lascivious (nice work if you can get it) "I love that swelling organ sound".

But mentioning it with a capital G, "Round the Horne" (I think it was, but perhaps it was earlier) had Ron and Eth - The Glums. The song may have come from there.

MG

The Glums were from an earlier show called 'Take It From Here'. I strongly doubt that they would have got away with the 'stick your finger up your bum' song in the Reithian BBC of the day, when there were rule books on what subjects were allowed in jokes ( no mention of rabbit's procreation habits for example ). Difficult to imagine nowadays. Mind you, the music hall comedian Max Miller got banned for 8 years by the BBC for using the following joke in a variety show broadcast:

" I was walking on a narrow cliff path when I saw this gorgeous blonde walking towards me. There wasn't room for us to pass each other. I didn't know whether to block her passage or toss myself off!" Boom-boom!

[Jazzmoose]

Obviously, the BBC has a dirty mind...

[Christiern]

I found the BBC to be remarkably open in the mid-Sixties when I had an office there. One night in early 1966, having just come in from New York, I turned on the TV and caught the tail end of a dramatization of Somerset Maugham's life. It was a scene in which the actor portraying him was chasing a young man around the swimming pool and it was clearly a sexual thing. There was also a scene in which Maugham's male secretary (or someone portraying him) said something like "and the silly old queen didn't even leave me a farthing." Working with shows like "Round the Horne", I already knew that Auntie BBC wasn't as prudish as, say, American broadcasters, but I was truly amazed to see Maugham--a revered author, who had recently died--treated with such irreverence. The following day, I had lunch with Sir Hugh Greene, the big boss, and I mentioned what I had seen and asked him how such disrespect could be allowed. He said that, very simply, it was a true representation, and , therefore, acceptable.

I still find that amazing.

[The Magnificent Goldberg]

Sorry, I had it all wrong. The British satirical magazine that I associated with those songs was not called "Spy"--it was Private Eye. Does that ring a bell among our friends across the sea?

'Private Eye' is still going strong, if not quite the cult it was in the 60s. It really came to the fore at the time of the Profumo/Keeler scandals ( 1963 ) and the rise of The Establishment Club ( part owned by Peter Cook ) and the satire boom. It used to be a 'must read' for the under 30s at the time and exposed a number of juicy scandals.

If I remember rightly it did sometimes have a cover-mounted flexi-disc which could well have had the 'glum' song on it.

I still have one of those Private Eye records - "Dear Sir, Is this a record?" But, sad to say, it doesn't contain the Glum song. It does contain Dudley Moore saying, in a voice simultaneously lugubrious and lascivious (nice work if you can get it) "I love that swelling organ sound".

But mentioning it with a capital G, "Round the Horne" (I think it was, but perhaps it was earlier) had Ron and Eth - The Glums. The song may have come from there.

MG

The Glums were from an earlier show called 'Take It From Here'. I strongly doubt that they would have got away with the 'stick your finger up your bum' song in the Reithian BBC of the day, when there were rule books on what subjects were allowed in jokes ( no mention of rabbit's procreation habits for example ). Difficult to imagine nowadays. Mind you, the music hall comedian Max Miller got banned for 8 years by the BBC for using the following joke in a variety show broadcast:

" I was walking on a narrow cliff path when I saw this gorgeous blonde walking towards me. There wasn't room for us to pass each other. I didn't know whether to block her passage or toss myself off!" Boom-boom!

Ah yes, "Take it from here". You may be right, then, the Glums were fifties material and that's probably not a fifties song, nor fifties style material I think.

I still think the words fit a Bill Oddie type voice.

MG

[The Magnificent Goldberg]

I found the BBC to be remarkably open in the mid-Sixties when I had an office there. One night in early 1966, having just come in from New York, I turned on the TV and caught the tail end of a dramatization of Somerset Maugham's life. It was a scene in which the actor portraying him was chasing a young man around the swimming pool and it was clearly a sexual thing. There was also a scene in which Maugham's male secretary (or someone portraying him) said something like "and the silly old queen didn't even leave me a farthing." Working with shows like "Round the Horne", I already knew that Auntie BBC wasn't as prudish as, say, American broadcasters, but I was truly amazed to see Maugham--a revered author, who had recently died--treated with such irreverence. The following day, I had lunch with Sir Hugh Greene, the big boss, and I mentioned what I had seen and asked him how such disrespect could be allowed. He said that, very simply, it was a true representation, and , therefore, acceptable.

I still find that amazing.

I imagine there was a double standard at work, though. I doubt that the BBC would have permitted a similar, true, representation of one of my former bosses in the sixties and all or any of his boy friends. It was permissible BECAUSE it was about Somerset Maugham, a revered author.

MG

[JSngry]

http://www.wikihow.com/Make-a-Balloon-Apple

Stick your pointer finger (of your dominant hand) in your mouth all the way. Slobber on it real good. You need this lubrication to remove your finger from the center of the apple later. Yes, this is a trade secret, you may not have wanted to know. Poke the nozzle of the balloon with your slobbery finger up toward the stem base.

[Christiern]

Jim, it would make sense if you followed the thread and took a more logical detour, but you have, again, posted for the sake of posting--is adding to you total really that important to you?

Getting back to the subject at hand--the history of comedy albums--perhaps MG should have made that recordings, because there were comedy recordings made in the very early days of the technology. I think MG had in mind stand-up (i.e. "live") comedy and that, of course wasn't happening too much (if, at all) in the 78 rpm era.

Which should it be, MG?

[JSngry]

Jim, it would make sense if you followed the thread and took a more logical detour,

"When you're feeling glum, stick a finger up your bum, and laugh, laugh, laugh...."

http://www.wikihow.com/Make-a-Balloon-Apple

Stick your pointer finger (of your dominant hand) in your mouth all the way. Slobber on it real good. You need this lubrication to remove your finger from the center of the apple later. Yes, this is a trade secret, you may not have wanted to know. Poke the nozzle of the balloon with your slobbery finger up toward the stem base.

Seems like a perfectly logical connection to me, this whole "sticking a finger in" thing does.

The classics never go out of style!

[Christiern]

Different strokes, I guess.

[JSngry]

Once it's up in there, yeah, definitely.

[mjzee]

Woody Allen made some hilarious albums in the early '60's for Colpix, collected here:

There was a huge run of Redd Foxx lps on Laff (?), along with other black comedians such as Moms Mabley and Pigmeat Markham, that I'd see in the back bins of my local record store, usually with the admonition "Adults Only!" Once Sanford & Son hit, he went mainstream on Atlantic:

And how about Steve Martin? These lps were HUGE...the first two especially. They sold like rock lps:

Robin Williams had a best-seller too, from his Mork & Mindy days:

That was probably the last generation that really sold comedy records, because then the VCR came along. The next big hit that I remember, Eddie Murphy - Delirious, sold more on video than on LP or cassette.

[The Magnificent Goldberg]

Jim, it would make sense if you followed the thread and took a more logical detour, but you have, again, posted for the sake of posting--is adding to you total really that important to you?

Getting back to the subject at hand--the history of comedy albums--perhaps MG should have made that recordings, because there were comedy recordings made in the very early days of the technology. I think MG had in mind stand-up (i.e. "live") comedy and that, of course wasn't happening too much (if, at all) in the 78 rpm era.

Which should it be, MG?

1 Thread derealments (a typo, but I thought it was nice) are one of the things that make life on forums interesting.

2 Yes - I did intend to focus on stand-up comedians, because that seemed a thing peculiarly suitable for LP treatment. And also because we didn't have much of that over here - the action was almost exclusively American. So I thought I'd learn summat, and I have.

3 There's no real reason why comedians shouldn't have made 78s and 45s live. I do have a live 45 by a black comedian from the Kennedy era. The work of Joe Von Battle in recording whole sermons of Rev C L Franklin on 3 or 4 78 albums in the forties shows that there was no real technological barrier in the pre-LP era. But it doesn't seem to have happened in comedy.

4 Moran and Mack were wonderful!

MG

[Christiern]

MG: "Moran and Mack were wonderful!"

Which brings to mind the pioneering work of Freeman Gosden and Charles Correll. BTW, the former called the film, Check and Doublecheck "about one of the worst movies ever made." They were in it (in blackface as "Amos and Andy") along with Duke Ellington.

[JSngry]

Comedy records are subject to the same copyright laws as music recordings, right?

[Rosco]

Peter Sellers had an album out about 1964 called Fool Brittania which was based around the Profumo and Christine Keeler scandals. It featured, among others, Anthony Newley and Joan Collins and was similar in style to the aforementioned First Family LPs.

Just been reissued on CD on the Acrobat label (the rest of their catalogue looks decidedly grey market)

http://www.acrobatmusic.net/?cid=5&AlbumId=511

[Ken Dryden]

There's a new Spike Jones collection, consisting of 2 DVDs with 4 television shows, an interview and a CD of performances.

It's called Spike Jones: The Legend.