Novelty Songs

Novelty Songs
Novelty Songs & Parodies: Not Just One-Hit Wonders
Novelty songs often become popular for a while at least. They enjoyed a lot of airplay in the 1950s and 1960s. Songs from those decades dominate the top 50 list of novelty songs. But many of the songs are from people who had their moment of fame with a song then never quite reached the same heights again. There have been a few artists who specialized in novelty music who stand out as memorable from those decades: Spike Jones, Victor Borge, Allan Sherman and Tom Lehrer. Of those who came late...

Doctor Demento Hit Parade
Novelty Records: The Doctor Is IN!
Dr. Demento (aka Barrett Hansen) has a nationally syndicated radio show each week that features novelty and comedy songs from all eras. While his on-air persona is decidedly wacky, off-air he's a serious collector of novelty and comedy records, tapes and CDs. If it's funny and it's been recorded, it's probably in Dr. Demento's vast collection. I've included videos with the actual performers where possible. Others feature video created by the people who submitted them to YouTube, and a few ar...

Victor Borge Video Showcase
Comedy in Music
Victor Borge, known as "the Clown Prince of Denmark" and "the Great Dane," trained early in life as a classical pianist. In the 1930s he began including comedy in his performances, often making jokes at the expense of Adolf Hitler. He was performing in Sweden when the Germans occupied Denmark, and managed to get to the United States on the last passenger ship to leave Europe early in World War II. He learned English by watching movies and began performing on Rudy Vallee's radio show in 1941, ...

Allan Sherman Video Showcase
Hello Muddah, Hello Fadduh!
Allan Sherman didn't start out as his mother's son, the folksinger. Before he gained fame with song parodies, he created the popular TV show I've Got a Secret in 1952 and was the show's producer from then until 1958. He lived in West Los Angeles next door to Harpo Marx and would sing his song parodies at Marx's parties. George Burns persuaded a record executive to sign Sherman to a contract. The led to the recording of My Son, the Folksinger in 1962, a year when folk music was very popular. I...

Spike Jones Video Showcase
Spike Jones and his City Slickers: Outrageous Parodies
Spike Jones was a musician and bandleader who satirized popular and classical music in the 1940s and 1950s with his band The City Slickers. His arrangements, which sometimes started out sounding quite urbane and sophisticated, would quickly devolve into mayhem featuring gunshots, cowbells, raspberries, sirens, whistles, gongs and oddball vocalizations. One of his biggest hits was 1942's "Der Fuehrer's Face," which was written for a Walt Disney propaganda film featuring Donald Duck. The video...

Tom Lehrer Video Showcase
Best Musical Satirist of the 20th Century
Tom Lehrer wrote some of the best satirical songs of the 1950s and 1960s while also pursuing an academic career teaching mathematics and musical theater. He self-produced his first album which was sold on the Harvard University campus and local record stores. Word of mouth was the key to his popularity as people bought the record, played it for friends, took them home over the summer, leading to more sales. That's how things went viral before the Internet. Lehrer stopped touring and performe...

Doctor Demento Hit Parade 2
Novelty Records: The Doctor Is In Again!
The first Doctor Demento Hit Parade lens presented videos based on the Dr. Demento 20th Anniversary Collection. This second hit parade presents videos from the Dr. Demento 30th Anniversary Collection. Note: Videos on YouTube sometimes disappear suddenly. If you click on a video and get a message saying it's been removed, embedding has been disabled, etc. I'd appreciate it if you'd leave a comment in the guestbook. I'll remove it from the lens and try to find something to replace it.

Stan Freberg Video Showcase
A Veteran Hollywood Voice Actor
Stan Freberg got into voice work in Hollywood in 1944 when he signed on with Warner Brothers. His first vocal appearance was as Junyer Bear in "Bugs Bunny and the Three Bears." He wasn't actually credited for his voice work until 1957. In his voice work he was often paired with other notables such as Mel Blanc (Bugs Bunny), Daws Butler (Yogi Bear, Huckleberry Hound) and June Foray (Rocket J. Squirrel, Natasha Fatale). Freberg and Butler were the voices and puppeteers for the award-winning chi...