Stan Freberg has died, darn the luck.

Stan "The Man" Freberg: Floats the jokes right down the drain! (And "pay radio" did come to pass!)

Somehow, I wasn't ready for the death today of Stan Freberg, even though the man was 88 and had been in failing health for years. All I know is that yesterday, there was a Stan Freberg, and today there isn't one. So today loses in a landslide. A comedian, satirist, radio star, voice actor, singer, songwriter, puppeteer, TV pioneer, and game-changing ad man, Stan was a wizard with words. But words are failing me now, as I try to describe what Mr. Freberg's work meant to me and why it was so important to the history of comedy.

I don't want to fall back on that label of "influential." Yes, it's very nice that he was influential on several generations of fans, some of whom grew up to create music and books and movies of their own. "Weird Al" Yankovic is probably Stan's most famous acolyte, and the two got to work together in the 1990s on CBS' short-lived Saturday morning offering, The "Weird Al" Show. Many more Stan fans probably went into advertising themselves and enjoyed the creative freedom he helped make possible with his innovative "soft sell" campaigns. His ads still work! In particular, a decades-old spot for the Milky Way candy bar created in me an irresistible craving for Milky Ways, even though it's not a product I normally purchase. Stan should've gotten a commission on that sale.

But, still, I say phooey to that "influential" jazz. That word makes it seem like Stan Freberg's whole purpose on this earth was to provide an example for others to follow later, like he was a means to an end. Stan was not a means to an end. He was the end!. His work provides plenty of pleasure on its own, well beyond its historical importance. I should know. I have several hours of his material on my iPod, and it is rare that a week goes by that I don't listen to some of it.

I hardly know where to begin in recommending his work to you. Maybe Three Little Bops, a jazzy little cartoon he voiced for Warner Bros in 1957? Something from Stan Freberg Presents the United States of America, perhaps? (There, I'm partial to "A Man Can't Be Too Careful What He Signs These Days" with Stan as a curmudgeonly Ben Franklin with serious qualms about affixing his name to the Declaration of Independence.) I could point you in the direction of his brief-but-brilliant CBS radio series, The Stan Freberg Show or one of those masterful sides he cut for Capitol Records, like "St. George and the Dragonet" or "The Banana Boat Song (Day-O)" or even "Widescreen Mama." (Sample lyrics: "Widescreen mama, don't you Cinerama me!")

All of these things are Stan, and yet none of them "are" Stan. He was a complicated guy: multi-faceted, multi-talented, and multi-media, though he loved radio best of all. Maybe I'll just play you the record that turned me from a Stan Freberg fan to a Stan Freberg fanatic. It's called "The World Is Waiting for the Sunrise," and it's a parody of a then-current hit by Les Paul and Mary Ford. He leaves the lyrics of the original song intact, more or less, and instead chooses to spoof the fussed-over, studio-perfected sound of the record. Here, just listen:



"Look out!!! The equipment is smoking!!!!! Run for your life!!!!'

How could I help but love something like that? For more on Stan Freberg, please see my review (a love letter from start to finish) of A Child's Garden of Freberg.

Video held for questioning in mysterious disappearance of radio star

The glorious sight of a radio blowing up.

Behold the glory of Wa Wa Nee.

I don't hate the radio. Really, I don't. When I was an adolescent back in those musty, backwards days known as the 1980s and 1990s, I actually cherished the radio. It was, along with MTV, where you went to hear the latest in rock and pop, an essential part of any clueless white kid's life in the Middle West. 

In those days, the go-to stations for teens in the Flint, MI area were WIOG and the ever-so-slightly hipper WWCK. I used to set my alarm on Saturday mornings so I could hear the beginning of America's Top 40 with Casey Kasem. I think Casey's show ran on WIOG, but I wouldn't bet my paycheck on it. With commercial breaks and long distance dedications and such, the show actually ran for several hours. There was no way to listen to all of it. 

But I definitely wanted to hear the beginning of the show (numbers 40 through 30 ), because that's when you'd hear the newest hits -- the ones that had just crawled into the lower reaches of the Top 40. Sometimes, a song would only stick around for a week or two and wouldn't get past #30. Those were some of the tracks I found most fascinating of all. I was intrigued by the phenomenon of getting so close to the big time without actually making it.

In 1987, for instance, there was an upbeat ditty called "Sugar Free" by an Australian funk-pop outfit improbably named Wa Wa Nee. The song peaked at #35 and was Wa Wa Nee's only appearance on the countdown. Casey Kasem only had to say the name "Wa Wa Nee" for a week or two at the most. He'd always mention which songs had fallen off the charts during a particular week; it was always a moment of somber reflection for me when he read that list. "Sugar Free" was nothing special -- I barely remember it now -- but I went ahead and bought (with my parents' money, natch) a cassette of the group's one album anyway. Did I ever even listen to it all the way through? Probably not. It was just part of my weird Top 40 fetish back then.

I listen to a lot of Top 40 radio now, too, though this time it isn't by choice. The sound of a CHR (contemporary hits radio) station wafts across the bank of cubicles at my workplace each morning. I don't know where it comes from, but it's unmistakable nevertheless. The songs are distinguishable, but the rest of the audio registers in my mind's ear as unintelligible background slush. The station must be somewhere in Chicago, since I toil in the Loop, about a block away from the structure formerly known as the Sears Tower. 

From what I can make out of what I hear, the chuckling deejays banter back and forth, take phone calls from listeners, run some sort of daily contest, and play lots and lots of prerecorded sound effects. I don't know what these purpose these interludes serve, but it involves a lot of loud boinging and twanging noises. 

And in between, of course, there is the music. This being Top 40, they're drawing from a very small pool of songs and playing them over and over, several times a day, for months on end. I have heard "Shake It Off" by Taylor Swift and "Fancy" by Iggy Azalea more times than any human ever should. A few months ago, I grew to hate songs like Pharrell Williams' "Happy" and Robin Thicke's "Blurred Lines" with a stubborn, iron-clad passion. Some nights, I still wake up with "Roar" by Katy Perry echoing in my head. That song is my Vietnam. Keep in mind, this is at 7:30 in the morning. Nobody wants to hear Pink or Ke$ha at that hour of the day. Not even their own mothers.

Radio, as a medium, has given us lots of great things. For me, it's Bob & Ray, The Stan Freberg Show, and good ol' Dr. Demento. I listen to a lot of podcasts these days. That's not precisely radio, but it's the bastard stepchild of radio at least. The only time I voluntarily listen to regular, over-the-air FM radio these days is when I'm in the car. Then it's just NPR or maybe some classical or jazz station where the disc jockeys talk in those half-whispery, golf-announcer voices. 

I mentioned Stan Freberg a few sentences back, though. He was -- and maybe still is -- a great believer in radio. In fact, he wrote this wonderful little advertising ditty on behalf of the radio industry. It's sung by Sarah Vaughn and conducted and arranged by Quincy Jones. Give it a whirl, won't you?

One Song at a Time: "I Only Have Eyes for You"

The unique, sophisticated sound of the Flamingos captured my imagination as a teen.

The song: "I Only Have Eyes for You"

Artist: The Flamingos

Released: 1959

This will be a brief one, I promise. I just wanted to write about this song while the mood was still with me. And, yeah, it's another doo-wopper, a tune released only a year before The Passions' "I Only Want You," the song I wrote about yesterday. The titles are almost identical, I admit. If my goal with this feature was to bring you a diverse selection of songs from different genres, so far I'm not doing so hot. But you know what? This is my blog, and I'll write about what I damned well please.

The song "I Only Have Eyes for You" goes back to 1934, and it's been recorded by everyone from hell to breakfast (fuzzy-haired Artie Garfunkel had something of a hit with it in the 1970s), but the only waxing that really counts was the one done by The Flamingos in 1959. You've probably heard their version in a movie or playing on an oldies radio station or something like that, and it's tempting to lump this record in with all the other kitschy '50s detritus, like poodle skirts and hula hoops.

But "I Only Have Eyes for You" stands out from the pack. It's unlike most doo-wop and R&B from the era. It's different from just about everything. The Flamingos took a tune that was already a golden oldie by the time they got their hands on it, and they tore it down to the ground and rebuilt something beautiful and weird from the rubble. To me, the record still sounds like it was recorded tomorrow.

The lead singer really does seem to be in a dreamlike trance, so in love he's unsure of whether or not he's in a garden, and the other singers and musicians sound like they're recording in a different dimension altogether. I get chills every time.

If I can pin the greatness of the record on any one factor, I'd have to say it's one of the simplest things: those repeated piano triplets, what Stan Freberg disparagingly called "that clink clink clink jazz." Never has "clink clink clink" been so mysterious or so lovely.

My official blackmail photo.

"I Only Have Eyes for You" had probably been in the background of my life for years without my really noticing, but I can distinctly remember the very night that this recording became one of my all-time favorites.

It was the early 1990s, let's say '91 or '92, and I was a teenager in high school. In those days, one of the main driving forces in my life was marching band. Yeah, I was one of those kids. I was in it all four years -- halftime shows, pep rallies, those funny faux-military hats with the plumes on top, the Sgt. Pepper-esque tunics. That was my life. Hey, I'm not ashamed of it. Semper fi. 

Anyway, we were a competitive band, which meant that on the weekends during the fall, they'd load us onto school buses and take us to other towns in mid-Michigan for these big outdoor contests (usually called "invitationals"). On these busy Saturdays, we'd go to football stadiums at other schools and do our choreographed eight-minute halftime show. Other bands would do their eight-minute halftime shows, too, usually based around a particular theme or a composer. Along the way, a panel of very serious-looking judges would watch all these groups, rate them in a dizzying variety of nit-picky categories, and hand out trophies at the end of the night. It was all very scientific, I assure you.

These competitions took a long time to complete, as you might guess, and we were often very late getting back to the parking lot of our own high school. It would be cold and dark by then, and the kids who didn't have cars of their own would have their parents waiting to pick them up. (Poor parents! It was past midnight!) While the bus rides to the contests were pretty raucous, the bus rides home were quiet and contemplative. Everyone was pretty much zonked out by then. I can remember just staring out the window at all the traffic lights.

My only entertainment in those primitive days was an AM/FM cassette Walkman. One night, I realized I didn't have enough battery power left to play a tape, so I switched it to the "radio" function. At first, all I could get was static, but suddenly a song coalesced out of the chaos! It was "I Only Have Eyes for You" by The Flamingos, and I was hypnotized by it. It's one of those transcendent experiences you hope to have while listening to music, and I don't know that any record could affect the 38-year-old me the way that song affected the 15- or 16-year old me. Maybe I'm still hoping to replicate that feeling, twenty-plus years later.

Joe's Record Collection: Stan Freberg takes dead aim at the entire Top 40

Comic, actor, writer, singer, puppeteer and ad man: Stan Freberg has done it all.

The record: A Child's Garden of Freberg (Capitol Records, 1957 - T-777)

The artist: Stan Freberg

A Child's Garden of Freberg

History: The California-born son of a Baptist minister, Stan Freberg (1926-2015) is one of America's great satirists. Though I certainly don't agree with all his opinions, there are moments when I think he should be added to Mount Rushmore. He was a voice actor for Disney and Looney Tunes (the latter most prominently in 1957's Three Little Bops) and a regular on one of the first successful television series ever, the groundbreaking puppet show, Beany and Cecil (he was Cecil the Seasick Sea Serpent). Beyond that, Stan more or less invented the "funny commercial" with a series of distinctive print, radio, and television ads that employed a humorous, "soft sell" approach. Freberg credits his success in the advertising game -- where he was employed for decades -- to his contempt for "real" commercials.

Stan also had the good and bad fortune to be, in his words, "the last of the network radio comedians" with a short-lived but influential series of his own, CBS's The Stan Freberg Show, which lasted all of 15 weeks in 1957. (America had long since moved on to television by then.) For about ten years in the middle of the last century, Stan Freberg was also a Capitol Records recording artist with a string of hit singles, often employing the talents of cartoon legends June Foray (aka Rocky the Flying Squirrel) and Daws Butler (aka Yogi Bear) in elaborate sketches that lampooned popular culture, usually television or music. A Child's Garden of Freberg, whose title is a spoof of Robert Louis Stevenson's A Child's Garden of Verses, is Capitol's belated attempt to gather Freberg's hits (and a few B-sides) into a single compilation.

Four years later, still recording for Capitol, the comedian did reach the Top 40 with his unprecedented, massively-ambitious concept album Stan Freberg Presents the United States of America Volume One: The Early Years. (Volume Two didn't come out until 1996.) Freberg headed back to Madison Avenue to pay the bills, but his records had a second life thanks to radio's The Dr. Demento Show, where a new generation of listeners, including "Weird Al" Yankovic, heard them.

All Music Guide says: Five stars. "A Child's Garden of Freberg remains an excellent overview of Freberg's early years and is well worth the purchase, if you can find it." - Sean Carruthers [link]

Was it a hit: The album doesn't seem to have been one, no, but most of the songs on it reached the charts. In fact, "St. George and the Dragonet" hit #1 in October 1953 and stayed there five weeks. "C'est si Bon" peaked at #13 in January 1954. "Try" topped out at #15 in April 1952. "Heartbreak Hotel" got as far as #79 in July 1956. "The Yellow Rose of Texas" rose to #16 in October 1955. "John and Marsha," Stan's first hit, climbed to #21 in February 1951. "That's My Boy" landed at #30 in August 1951. "Rock Island Line" missed the charts here but was a #36 hit in England in July 1956. "Sh-Boom" was a success in America and England, hitting #14 here and #15 there. All told, Stan had 16 chart hits over a nine-year period (1951-1960). Not a bad track record for a comedian.

Choice excerpt from the liner notes: Already an ace copywriter, Stan composed his own liner notes in the form of an essay called "To Those Persons Fingering This Album in the Record Shop and Wondering Whether to Buy Bach Fugues Instead." He makes wisecracks about the album ("Hey, you guys, here's a forty-minute wad of Freberg. Take it or leave it."), thanks his collaborators, pointing out that orchestra leader Billy May wears a "great, flapping Hawaiian shirt" when he conducts, and boasts a little about his record sales ("The good fairies must have come in the night and bought all those records.") and his international success. ("To my amazement, people of other countries, while at times comprehending only 50% of the real satire, laugh as loudly as  Americans," he says.) Most interestingly, he reaffirms his hatred of rock & roll ("a musical trend that I personally loathe") and gives a definition and a heartfelt defense of satire, quoting fiercely conservative Li'l Abner cartoonist Al Capp  ("a man who has influenced me a lot") in the process. "The fifth freedom," according to Capp, "is the freedom to laugh at ourselves."

An odd couple; Daws Butler and Stan Freberg.

The listening experience: Impressive, though I've heard most of these songs a hundred times at least. In fact, I already owned most of the tracks on A Child's Garden of Freberg, but I purchased it for the handful of rarities and the Freberg essay on the back cover. It's still a very entertaining and funny record. Unsurprisingly, it starts with Freberg's all-time biggest hit, "St. George and the Dragonet," one of only two spoken-word pieces on the LP. (The rest are songs.) "Sgt. George" is a Dragnet parody with Stan as a Joe Friday-type, humorless, monotone knight who arrests a dragon for "devouring maidens out of season" and interviews witnesses, including Butler (who imitates Jerry Lewis) and Foray, with Jack Webb's usual brand of dull, bureaucratic professionalism and barely-concealed contempt. Particularly corny jokes, a Freberg trademark, are punctuated with the famous four-note Dragnet theme.  ("How ya gonna catch him?" "I thought you'd never ask. With a dragon net." DUN DA DUN DUN!)

Most of the other songs on the album are parodies of popular songs of the era. Unlike Allan Sherman and "Weird Al" Yankovic, though, Freberg's method of parody is not to change the lyrics of the original song but to exaggerate and distort their most outstanding qualities. Generally, these parodies are little musical skits in which a singer is trying to record a hit record but keeps being interrupted by pesky background singers, disobedient musicians, and skeptical executives. The first of these on the album, a spoof of Eartha Kitt's "C'est si Bon," is a modest example of the form. With a breathy faux-French voice, Freberg himself plays Ms. Kitt, whose detached coolness is put to the test by a chorus who won't wait for the "cotton pickin' signal" to come in at the desired moment.

Elsewhere on Side One, Freberg plays a petulant, pouting Elvis Presley whose attempts to lay down "Heartbreak Hotel" are sabotaged by ripped jeans, an uncooperative guitar, and an out-of-control echo effect. On Side Two, Freberg laces into Mitch Miller's bombastic (and massively popular) version of "The Yellow Rose of Texas." Though Miller himself was a New Yorker, Freberg portrays him like a Civil War-era Kentucky colonel who struggles in vain to suppress a "smart-alecky Yankee snare drummer" who tries to hog the spotlight. Freberg also has some fun with the so-called "skiffle" craze (basically, British folk music) with his version of Lonnie Donnegan's "Rock Island Line." Poor Lonnie can barely get a word in edgewise due to the frequent interruptions of an impatient record business honcho (Peter Leeds) who objects to the nonsensical lyrics, the singer's imprecise diction, and what he sees as an unnecessarily long intro.

"Try," a reworking of "Cry" by Johnnie Ray, is one of the few Freberg songs that does change the lyrics of the original. Giving a wildly exaggerated, ridiculously emotional performance, Stan sends up Johnnie Ray's weepy, melodramatic style with a song that extols the virtues of misery. ("You, too, can be unhappy if you tuh-ryyyyyyyyyyy!")

The enemies: Elvis Presley as Marlon Bando.

Freberg's most vicious parodies are of the new teenage music that had taken the pop charts by storm. A lifelong fan of jazz, swing, and big band music, Stan Freberg utterly despised rock & roll, which he considered crude, repetitive, and moronic. Instead of just dismissing it as just another fad, though, Stan truly deconstructs the music and finds out what makes it tick. In doing so, he is the first true rock satirist, beating Frank Zappa to the punch by a decade.

Even though I adore the primitive, early rock of the 1950s and completely disagree with Freberg about the merits of the music, I still get a kick out of Stan's intricate and inventive parodies of the genre. In his version of the Platters' "The Great Pretender," a beatnik piano player (Freberg) resents having to play the same chords over and over throughout the whole song and keeps trying to turn the rock ballad into a jazz number, driving the frantic lead singer (also Freberg) to distraction. "You play that 'clink clink clink' jazz or you don't get paid!" he threatens. Instead of raising moral objections to rock & roll, like so many other cultural critics of the 1950s, Freberg raises musical objections and uses this record to state his case as plainly as possible.

The album's last song, "Sh-Boom," is a takeoff on an R&B number by the Chords (not the sanitized white version by the Crew Cuts). Here, Stan equates the rise of rock music to the concurrent rise of "method acting" that was then making its presence felt in Hollywood. The lead singer on this track is Marlon Brando's Stanley Kowalski, as imitated by the comedian. The faux Brando insists on mumbling his way through the song, occasionally interrupted by a shrieking Stella. The song builds in intensity as "Stanley" works himself into a lather, and the background music morphs into a mash-up of "The Campbells Are Coming" and the Dragnet theme, bringing A Child's Garden of Freberg full circle.

Two more tracks on the album are pastiches of the rock style: an incoherent 12-bar blues song called "Widescreen Mama" and a moronic medley called "Rock Around Stephen Foster." On these songs, Freberg exaggerates the distorted guitar and saxophone sounds of the music he "personally loathes" and, in doing so, ironically creates two excellent rock records in the process. If he didn't hate the music so much, he could have made a fortune cranking it out. One special side effect of Freberg's rock parodies is that they are loaded with references to once familiar, now mostly forgotten public figures, including Carrie Jacobs-Bond, Nick Lukas, Hunter Hancock, Hugo Winterhalter, and Gayelord Hauser. In all, about half of this album is devoted to spoofing rock music -- more than half if you expand the definition to include Lonnie Donnegan and Johnnie Ray.



There are a couple of oddball tracks on A Child's Garden of Freberg that deserve mention, too. "John and Marsha" is a two-character soap opera with a pair of lovers (both played by Stan) saying each other's names over and over in various tones of voice while sappy "romantic" music plays in the background. This famous bit, simple but ingenious, was referenced by Bugs Bunny, imitated by John and Yoko, and even resurrected on Mad Men. The lushly-orchestrated "That's My Boy" is a song in which a proud papa boasts about his son, who sounds like a violent and destructive brat. "He'll talk to you in words just as plain," Freberg brags. "See how clear he says 'derail the train?'" This track is a reminder that the supposed innocence of children is merely a figment of adult imaginations. This was South Park half a century early.

Overall grade: (what else?) A*

*Don't worry. I'll eventually do some albums I hate in this series, too.

A couple new ZOMBY! cartoons, plus a musical tribute to Mr. Christopher Columbus!

First, let's get the unpleasantness out of the way...

Quite amusing, I'm sure. Now, then, let's continue.

Columbus: And he was handsome, too!

Today, October 8, is Columbus Day. That used to mean something in this country, friends. Well, no, that's not true. For as long as I can remember, Columbus Day has always been one of those B.S. holidays that postal workers and some lucky school kids had off but which no one ever really gave a second thought. I have the day off today myself, which is why I can lounge in bed and write this very post. But it's safe to say that in my lifetime, Christopher Columbus' legacy has completely disintegrated. We weren't exactly taught to love Chrissy C as kids, but we still regarded him as a more or less a hero. After all, he "discovered America." Except, of course, he didn't. Other explorers had been here before, and besides, the land was already, uh, occupied. All Columbus really brought to America was disease, genocide, and oppression. Nowadays, I'm told, Columbus is treated as a villain in our elementary schools. Kids now think of him as a one-man combination of Hitler and the Black Plague. And who knows? Maybe that's what he deserves. But what a bummer for Columbus! He made it as far as the 1990s with his reputation intact -- 500 years! -- only to see it come crashing down in the last two decades. I honestly didn't see that coming for the poor guy. In fact, if I were to name the two societal trends which have surprised me most during my time on this planet, I would say the widespread acceptance of tattoos and the complete downgrading of Christopher Columbus.

But what a run he had before that, huh? In order to commemorate the Columbus that was (but really wasn't), I'd like to present this selection of songs written in his honor.

First up is a song called, simply, "Christopher Columbus." It was written in the 1930s by Chu Berry and Andy Razaf and has been recorded by many jazz and pop performers over the years. It's often done as an instrumental,  which is how I first heard it (in a recording by Benny Goodman), but here it is with words. And even better, it's done by one of the seminal groups of the Twentieth Century, the Ink Spots, a vocal quartet whose sound was a major influence on R&B and rock. Give this one a chance. It's really catchy.



Next up is a selection by legendary American satirist, voice-over artist, and adman Stan Freberg. It's called "Christopher Columbus Discovers America," and it's a track from his landmark 1961 LP, Stan Freberg Presents the United States of America, Volume One: The Early Years, a musical in album form which covered our nation's history from 1492 to 1783 through songs and sketches. This portion includes one such song, "It's a Round Round World," performed by Freberg himself as Columbus and character actor Jesse White (the original Maytag repairman!) as King Ferdinand.



This next one is not so familiar to me. It's an educational song about Chris, and it's credited only to the mysterious Miss Healy. I'm  including it here because it's largely representative of the image I had of Columbus as a kid. You know, "In 1492, Columbus sailed the ocean blue" and all that jazz.



And last? Well, it's a song by Guy Mitchell (1927-1999), a Detroit-born crooner who was intensely popular and successful in the 1950s in the US and the UK but who is all but forgotten today. This particular number, titled simply "Christopher Columbus," hit #27 on the charts back in 1951. It was just one of his nine hit records that year, and Guy's monster hit ("Singing the Blues") was still five years away.



It didn't seem right to end the article without presenting the opposing side, so here to do just that is Winston Rodney, OD a.k.a. Burning Spear, legendary Jamaican reggae singer and Rastafarian evangelist. Since this song makes heavy use of Jamaican Patois, I have included a transcription of the lyrics beneath the clip. The refrain is unmistakable, though: Christopher Columbus is a damned blasted liar. We sometimes forget that Christopher Columbus is given credit for "discovering" Jamaica, too.

I and I old I know
I and I old I say
I and I reconsider
I and I see upfully that
Christopher Columbus is a damn blasted liar
Christopher Columbus is a damn blasted liar
Yes Jah

He's saying that, he is the first one
who discover Jamaica
I and I say that,
What about the Arawak Indians and the few Black man
Who were around here, before him
The Indians couldn't hang on no longer
Here comes first Black man and woman and children,
In a Jam Down Land ya
A whole heap of mix up and mix up
A whole heap a ben up, ben up,
We have fi straighten out,
Christopher Columbus is a damn blasted liar
Christopher Columbus is a damn blasted liar
Yes Jah

What a long way from home
I and I longing to go home
Within a Red, Green, and Gold Robe
Come on Twelve Tribe of Israel
Come on Twelve Tribe of Israel
Out a Jam Down land ya
A whole heap of mix up mix up
A whole heap a ben up, ben up,
Come on Twelve Tribe of Israel
Come on Twelve Tribe of Israel
Out a Jam Down land ya  Yes, Jah! 

Christopher Columbus is a damn blasted liar
Christopher Columbus is a damn blasted liar
Yes Jah, he is a liar
Yes Jah, he is a liar
Yes Jah, he is a liar
Columbus is a liar
Yes jah Christopher Columbus is a damn blasted liar
Columbus

(today's zomby) AND MERRY CHRISTMAS FROM ALLAN, TOM, AND STAN!

Heading out for the three-day Christmas weekend in a bit, folks. Here's a new Zomby!!! cartoon for your perusal. In case you feel yourself overdosing on holiday cheer and need some relief, I'm also including a few of my Yuletide musical favorites from three of the all-time greats, Allan Sherman, Tom Lehrer and Stan Freberg, at least two of whom are Jewish. (Freberg was the son of a Baptist minister, in case you were wondering.)





And if even these are not strong enough, here's an extra strength tune by Rudolph and Gang. (WARNING: NSFW language, though it's Christmas so why are you at work anyway?)



I'm not sure why this video was accompanied by pictures of British politician John Prescott. I have nothing against the guy.