The comedic genius BOB ELLIOTT (one half of the genius comedy duo Bob [Elliott] & Ray [Goulding]) has passed away. Shoot 'n' beggorra! There are so few comedic geniuses that we can't afford to lose any o' dem!
I learned this sad news the other day from my good friend Sheboyganboy Six (you read his comments in my comment sections every time you go to read my comment sections).
"Why", you ask, "did Sheboyganboy Six send you this sad news?"
Well, because it was Sheboyganboy Six who introduced me to the old time radio comedy brilliance of BOB & RAY a number of years ago. (He also sent me his cassette collection of their comedic genius when he upgraded to compact discs.)
"Why", you ask, "do you call him Sheboyganboy Six when his real name isn't Sheboyganboy Six?"
Well, because I fell in love with BOB & RAY, thanks to Sheboyganboy Six, and the theme music for the BOB & RAY radio comedy show was a tune titled 'Mention My Name In Sheboygan'...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2vLj1-ZPR3M
"Why," you ask, "does the mention of---"
OH, STOP ASKING SO DAMNED MANY QUESTIONS, WILL YA?!
These next two pictures were taken by me, personally, in Sheboygan, Wisconsin, circa 2010 exactly! Copy 'n' paste 'em on yer own blog and see if I don't sue the crap outta ya! (You'll never read a newspaper again!)
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| DAIRY QUEEN - SHEBOYGAN, WI. |
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| POLITICAL PARK - SHEBOYGAN, WI. |
There were way, Way, WAY too many wonderful BOB & RAY radio skits for me to mention here, but one of my favorites of their ongoing series of stories - which were never really going on to any particular conclusion - was 'Matt Neffer, Boy Spot-Welder'.
Consarn-it all! I still haven't decided which I love more, 'Matt Neffer' or 'Tippy, The Wonder Dog'.
'Tippy' was protly funnier, but 'Matt Neffer' was more weirder. And God knows how much I love bizarre comedy:
'MATT NEFFER, BOY SPOT-WELDER' - BOY & RAY
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mCWwNalykBY
And while we're yakkin' 'bout bizarre comedy, I'm reminded of the comment I just left on my friend Dixie Polka's blog:
>>... "The theme from TAXI, MASH, HILL STREET BLUES, BARNEY MILLER, MOONLIGHTING, THE ROCKFORD FILES - man, I love dat stuffs! It's "REAL" music!"
My own comment inspired me to go to YouTube and listen to some of the theme music I'd mentioned. And that somehow led me to the following video which had me laughing so loud and so long that I began to fear my trailer park neighbors would begin banging on my front door and yelling at me to STFU! (How loud are you laughing when you disturb the trailer trash around you?!)
Like Bob & Ray, ANDY KAUFMAN was a full-on comedic GENIUS! I loved the guy! ("John Wayne!-John Wayne!") I caught him on the Johnny Carson show at the start of his career (well before 'Taxi') and the guy totally
'Tony Danza Discusses Andy Kaufman'
You GOTTA click this link, because they won't let us embed it on our blogs. But it's friggin' hilarious, so click it, damn-it! Click it and wake up the trailer trash around ya!...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BZWDB5rUWEg
Andy, please come back now! We know you faked your death and you can come back "ONLY when it's funny". But it'll be funny NOW! So, please come back... and bring Bob Elliott with you!
~ Stephen T. McCarthy
Gosh darn!
ReplyDeleteI hate to ask - no, I'll simply make a statement: So, it was Sheboyganboy over Puh-doo-kaboy. Wow!
"Now, chocolate cookies with white stuff in-between them..." Ha! And a Looney Tunes ending theme - perfect!
The Tony Danza clip was worth it. Unfortunately I have no trailer park trash to excite - boo! Not to be misunderstood, I've lived in parks before... those walls are really paper.
>>... "My own comment inspired me..." Oh yeah?
Thanks for plugging your comment on my music blog. Wait until you see the song posted on my "Remove the Rose Colored Glasses" blog - Crazy world!
Post script: Sorry about Bob (sniffle).
Your pal, Dixie
My Pal, DIXIE! ...Down here in the wine cellar!
DeleteIt could have been Paducahboy, except I've never been to Paducah. (No point in mentioning my name there.) The closest I've been to Paducah is Murray. ...Well, to be more precise, the closest I've been is where highways 80 & 94 meet, just South of Aurora.
Dixie! ...Out here on the front porch!
In truth, my neighbors here in the trailer park are really nice, good neighbors. No problems - not really "trash" at all. Even if I am the "white stuff" living between two chocolate cookies.
I will check out yer song at 'Rose Colored Glasses'.
And please be sure to tune in here again next time when you will hear me say: "Dixie! ...Out here in the laundry room!"
~ D-FensDogG
'Loyal American Underground'
Bob and Ray are so funny and they will never be around like this again. Just like Wayne and Shuster, they came from a time that the variety show was strong, radio was big and it brought back the time of Vaudeville. Andy Kauffman was nuts. His alter ego was not funny at all and just don't get it. Tony Danza was great explaining all this
ReplyDeleteBIRGIT ~
DeleteI'm pleasantly surprised that you knew of BOB & RAY. But then I guess it makes sense you would seeing as how I myself don't even know Wayne & Shuster. (I don't think I ever heard of them.)
I love Bob & Ray. They were thinking so far outside the box. My Pa would have loved their wacky brand of humor, too. Maybe he knew of them but never turned me onto 'em.
Oh, a big part of Andy Kaufman's shtick was seeing how far he'd take something and seeing how many people would be surprised and/or offended. It was like "shock" comedy for the unsuspecting.
Like the story I heard long, long ago where he told an audience at a comedy club at the beginning of his act that they were all going to go have milk and cookies together after the show.
At the end of the show, buses he'd rented pulled up to the club and the entire audience was driven to some big parking lot where tables had been set up with milk and cookies. Andy and his entire audience went and snacked together in that lot.
I loved the guy. I'd have had milk & cookies with him any time!
~ D-FensDogG
So, you like TV themes? I've done a number of posts of them, and I've got them in a couple of playlists. Some great songwriters did TV themes, that's for sure.
ReplyDeleteBob and Ray were hilarious!
JOHN ~
DeleteOh, yeah, you're right: some A-list composers and musicians have been responsible for a number of great TV theme songs and music.
Do you have any one particular favorite?
I'll always be grateful to Sheboyganboy Six for turning me onto Bob & Ray. Yeah, they crack me up!
~ D-FensDogG
Just one? Gee.... "Park Avenue Beat," the theme from "Perry Mason." But that's just the beginning of them... There are a couple by Lalo Schifrin ("Mannix" and "Mission: Impossible"), "Hawaii Five-O" etc.
Delete'Mannix' I don't remember. The show I remember but not its theme music. But, yeah, 'Mission: Impossible' and 'Hawaii Five-O' are both excellent. Especially 'Five-O' - that high-energy Surf guitar stuffs and the pounding drums gets my motor runnin'!
Delete~ D-FensDogG
Here it is....
Deletehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=57aElw-rW2Y
Real nice jazz waltz.
Oh, yeah, I liked it!
DeleteI did recognize it, but only vaguely. I don't think I've seen more than a few episodes of 'Mannix'.
While I was there, I listened to 'Mission: Impossible' again. That's a classic.
~ D-FensDogG
I never fully appreciated Bob and Ray until sometime in the 90's. Their humor was pretty subtle so I guess I didn't totally get what they were doing until later in my life.
ReplyDeleteI remember seeing them somewhat frequently on The Today Show back in the 70's. They were kind of funny, but didn't knock my socks off back then. I was aware of them but didn't especially care about them. Didn't dislike them, but never realized how influential they were in the world of comedy.
Now I appreciate a good many things I didn't pay much attention to back in my younger days. We need more humor like the brand they presented.
Arlee Bird
A to Z Challenge Co-host
Tossing It Out
Yeah, I agree about the type of humor BOB & RAY performed. It was all totally clean - you didn't have to worry about who you were listening to it with. Plus, it was really imaginative. I still shake my head at some of the ideas they came up with.
DeleteThere was almost a kind of Monty Python-esque quality to their humor, in that they would combine different things that normally would never be spoken in the same sentence. Also, they were thinking so wacky that they were far outside-the-box in a time when there still was a "normal".
I loved all the fake corporate sponsors they came up with. Back when I was posting my blog series 'Sex, Tattoos, & Violence R Us', I always made up new company sponsors, and that was before I even knew there was a Bob & Ray who had beaten me to that punch decades earlier.
I think I came up with some pretty funny ones, too.
~ D-FensDogG
Bob and Ray were indeed comic geniuses. Their humor is subtle and clean, unlike the crass stuff we are bludgeoned with now. (Nothing wrong with Mel Brooks sort of humor too; but B&R were unlike anyone else.)
ReplyDeleteI like the "Tippy" and "Matt Neffer" skits, but I think my favorites are episodes of "Anxiety," interviews with Barry Campbell about his latest flops (such as the new movie "If Pain Persists"), reports from Wally Balloo, and episodes of "Mr. Trace, Keener than Most Persons," (a spoof of a radio show called "Mr. Keen, Tracer of Lost Persons").
I listen to some of it every single day.
You've explained half of my nickname (which YOU gave me): the Sheboygan part. The Six part is important too. When I first started commenting, the moniker I gave myself was "Number Six" after the Patrick McGoohan character in "The Prisoner."
"I will not be pushed, filed, stamped, indexed, briefed, debriefed, or numbered! My life is my own!"
"I Am Not a Number. I Am a Free Man!"
~ Number Six (over here Matt, in the village)
Ha! "Over here, Matt, in the village." I got it!
DeleteYeah, SBB-6, I like all those you mentioned also, except I'm not sure if I've heard any of the Barry Campbell ones. "Anxiety" seems familiar though. But maybe I'm thinking of Mel Brooks' 'High Anxiety'.
I also love the Wally Ballou book reviews, where every single story included pirates. Ha! Genius! For Nappy and I, the favorite is 'Cinderella' - who never even gets mentioned in the book review of the book named after her.
Nappy does a good English accent, and he loved saying, "But I can't do nothin' about the weather, Captain!"
To which I would always respond, of course, with, "Why... You!!!..." Crash!-Bang!-Pow!
We both loved the 'Mannix' spoof, too - 'Blimmix'.
"Come to think of it, I believe I WILL have that beer."
"Oh no, it's too late, Pal. Crash!-Bang!-Pow!
HILARIOUS!
I'm not totally sure you've got the "Six" part entirely right. I seem to remember that I GAVE YOU that part also, after learning that you too had seen (and loved) 'The Prisoner' TV series.
Are you sure you had attached the number "Six" to you before I started calling you that?
Someday I'd still like to get all those Bob & Ray skits on CD. That's on my Bucket List.
~ D-FensDogG
'Loyal American Underground'
Best of B&R Vol. 1, Disc 3, Track 9 = Martin LeSouer, Raconteur. LOVE that one!
DeleteThe "Anxiety" bits are tales from the amazing files of Col. Neville Putney; tales well-designed to keep you in
Anxiety.
Vol.1 Disc 4 = one of the Barry Campbell skits. There are six more, but none in the "best of" series.
You should get more B&Rs! I can probably export them all as MP3s and then you could have them all digitally at least.
I'd forgotten about the book reviews! One of my favorites! "Why, You!" BIFF, POW!!
As for the Six name: I'm not sure. You could be right, but I don't recall it that way. I recall that I already had my "number6@tropic****.com email going before then, so I know you were not solely responsible for my using the number six nickname. My memory tells me that it was because of the nickname that the discussion of The Prisoner came up, but I don't really remember that far back and it is not worth looking up!
Be seeing you.
>>... The "Anxiety" bits are tales from the amazing files of Col. Neville Putney; tales well-designed to keep you in
DeleteAnxiety.
Oh, yes, absolutely! They're great!
I really appreciate the offer but I'm so technically inept that I wouldn't even know what to do with an MP3 file. What is that? Would it play on my computer? Could you skip to specific skits like on a CD? Could it be done easily? (You see, I'm not even sure what we're yakking about. I think it's something computer related, and beyond Email and Bloggin', I know nuttin'.)
Yeah, maybe that's it. Maybe I saw "Six" in your Email address and I asked what that signified. I know we had a long discussion about 'The Prisoner' and I said I hated the bad LSD trip ending. But you're right, it was a long time ago now and I don't remember either. Not worth the time to investigate, as that would only keep us in... ANXIETY!
Last night I was thinking of another B&R skit I liked. Most people probably wouldn't, but it was so slow, dumb, & pointless (like 'Matt Neffer') that it amused me. Can't remember the name but it's a soap opera spoof where the man and woman just sit there and yak about nuttin'.
I remember the one where they're sitting on the front porch. Something like this...
"My, but isn't it a lovely evening?"
"Uh-huh."
"Say, that yellow car that just went by - didn't it look like the yellow car that went by a few minutes ago."
"I didn't notice a yellow car earlier."
"Hmmm... Well, I could swear that was the same yellow car. ...Do you suppose Nancy will be able to come for Thanksgiving next month?"
"Uh-huh."
And so on and so on...
Be seeing you.
[That didn't work. Was supposed to be the "OK" signal but it didn't translate. I told you I'm no good with computers.]
~ D-FensDogG
Some great comedy skits. I love older classic comedy, I'm just not exposed to them very often.
ReplyDeleteAnd oh yes! I love classic theme songs. The ones you selected are truly awesome.
Ola, JEFFY!
DeleteI'm really big on comedy, and especially the clever, older stuff without all the profanity.
I do love me some Cheech Y Chong though, but that's about as dirty as I can go.
I always find it a bit peculiar when I strongly dislike a TV show but really dig its theme music. 'Hill Street Blues' and 'Sanford & Son' are two perfect examples.
~ D-FensDogG
Been meaning to get by here and leave a comment, just been so darn busy. No time for fun stuffs. Although, saying good bye to someone who could make you laugh is hardly 'fun stuffs'.
ReplyDeleteI never herd of Bob & Ray until you sent me some tapes. They are indeed very funny in that subtle, goofy, kind of way. It takes a moment to sink in, at least for this dumb blonde.
As for Andy, I thought he was hilarious from the start, Maybe it was that 'Mighty Mouse' thing. As far as him bein' off with Elvis; I think it's a distinct possibility, but i also think that if either or both of 'em pulled that one off, they aren't likely to spoil their 'giggle' and come back any time soon. They price you might have to pay for a little privacy, or maybe just to reinvent yourself.
Wow! You just caused me to think of a new angle to this thing that I'd never done thought of before:
DeleteWhat if Andy got the idea from Elvis? Let's think about this... I first became aware of Andy through his hilarious impersonation skit, starting with atrocious impersonations of Archie Bunker and Richard Nixon and whoever else. And culminating with an awesome impersonation of Elvis.
THAT was the comedy routine that kick-started Andy's career - getting him on Johnny Carson's show, etc.
So, we know Andy dug Elvis and had studied him intensely in order to get that impersonation down.
Elvis died in 1977. Soon after, that joke gained traction and became universal: "I saw Elvis! He was panhandling on Skid Row." Or, "I saw Elvis working at the car wash". "I saw Elvis, he was tending bar at a topless place."
So... Andy takes the joke to heart and realizes that he can turn it into his ultimate gag. He got started doing Elvis, and he ends by copying Elvis and faking his own death (even if Elvis didn't really do that).
His career goes from Elvis to Elvis. And maybe Andy comes back someday, unveiling his greatest joke on the public. Or maybe he just stays "dead" and enjoys the anonymity.
HOKEY-SMOKE! Suddenly, as of this morning, I'm taking this "Andy Kaufman isn't really dead" idea more seriously! It wasn't until your comment that I made the "Elvis To Elvis" connection.
Let there be Andy Kaufman jokes on Earth, and let 'em begin with me...
"I saw Andy Kaufman! He was panhandling on Skid Row."
"I saw Andy working at the car wash".
"I saw Andy, he was tending bar at a topless place."
No, WAIT! I gotta better one:
"I saw Andy, he was wrestling women at a topless place!"
HA!-HA! Oh, Stephen, you're such a card! ...But I really think I'm onto sumpin' here!
~ D-FensDogG
'Loyal American Underground'
Hi, Steve McCarthy,
ReplyDeleteCan I join Battle of the Bands?
Angelique (eViL pOp TaRt)
Yes, of course you can join. Never in my life have I said "No" to a Pop Tart... or even to a Tart Pop. And an evil one is even all the mo' better!
DeleteBy the way, in real life, blueberry and brown sugar are my favorite Pop Tart flavors. Feel free to send me a case of each.
I will head on over to yer blog and leave you a comment in... 3... 2... 1!
~ D-FensDogG
'Loyal American Underground'