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I'm throwing this challenge off in ways because I'm not following the proper days. This really is supposed to be the "Day 25" Challenge, just to be accurate to the original. Don't sue!
That brings us to the topic of the day on my version of the challenge. Songs that make you laugh are most probably what they used to call Novelty Songs, a song that was most likely a parody of an existing song or a song with wacky lyrics or a strange story.
When I was a kid, there was a show that specialized in just these songs only. It aired late on Sunday Nights and originated from a radio station in Los Angeles. It was called "The Dr. Demento Show" and the host, a Character Unto Himself, would play the music of Spike Jones and Allan Sherman and Ray Stevens... among an enormous grouping of songs that I had never heard played anywhere else. I developed my love for the music of Tom Lehrer from this program.
I was of the geek variety who would attempt to write my own little parodies of the music of the day, inspired by what I was hearing, but I was still too young to do anything with them, I had no actual musical ability, though I did practice piano and had played some clarinet for a bit earlier. And I was nowhere near L.A. so I couldn't drive to Dr. Dememto's studio and play him tapes of my songs, the way a certain Weird Al Yankovic did. The rest, as they say, was music history.
So maybe I wasn't meant to make song parodies, but I certainly knew the ones I liked. And I still like this form of music. Weird Al is the most prolific, still going strong decades after his first charted single: "My Bologna" a parody of The Knack's 1979 hit, "My Sharona", brought him to national attention.
While there's plenty of material to select from in Mr. Yankovic's Catalog alone, I'm going a slightly different way.
Another great source for comedy parodies is NBC's long running comedy/variety program "Saturday Night Live." They've presented a lot of stuff through the years, and although they've never released a comedy album, many of the players on the show have. One of those is Andy Samberg who was a castmember from 2005 through 2012. During his tenure with the program, Samberg did a series of short films titled "SNL Digital Shorts". The films, some of which became wildly popular, were listed as the work of The Lonely Island and almost every one of their songs was a duet, where they were paired with a superstar music performer, like "Shy Ronnie," with Rihanna, "I Just Had Sex" with Akon and what is likely the most memorable of all of the songs from that series, Justin Timberlake, performing "Dick In A Box."
The album Incredibad featured more of that material and I had to select this song becuase it still gets a chuckle out of me... probably because of the intended smack at LL Cool J and his song "Around The Way Girl" included here.
My choice for Day 24 is The Lonely Island - "Punch You In The Jeans"
That brings us to the topic of the day on my version of the challenge. Songs that make you laugh are most probably what they used to call Novelty Songs, a song that was most likely a parody of an existing song or a song with wacky lyrics or a strange story.
When I was a kid, there was a show that specialized in just these songs only. It aired late on Sunday Nights and originated from a radio station in Los Angeles. It was called "The Dr. Demento Show" and the host, a Character Unto Himself, would play the music of Spike Jones and Allan Sherman and Ray Stevens... among an enormous grouping of songs that I had never heard played anywhere else. I developed my love for the music of Tom Lehrer from this program.
I was of the geek variety who would attempt to write my own little parodies of the music of the day, inspired by what I was hearing, but I was still too young to do anything with them, I had no actual musical ability, though I did practice piano and had played some clarinet for a bit earlier. And I was nowhere near L.A. so I couldn't drive to Dr. Dememto's studio and play him tapes of my songs, the way a certain Weird Al Yankovic did. The rest, as they say, was music history.
So maybe I wasn't meant to make song parodies, but I certainly knew the ones I liked. And I still like this form of music. Weird Al is the most prolific, still going strong decades after his first charted single: "My Bologna" a parody of The Knack's 1979 hit, "My Sharona", brought him to national attention.
While there's plenty of material to select from in Mr. Yankovic's Catalog alone, I'm going a slightly different way.
Another great source for comedy parodies is NBC's long running comedy/variety program "Saturday Night Live." They've presented a lot of stuff through the years, and although they've never released a comedy album, many of the players on the show have. One of those is Andy Samberg who was a castmember from 2005 through 2012. During his tenure with the program, Samberg did a series of short films titled "SNL Digital Shorts". The films, some of which became wildly popular, were listed as the work of The Lonely Island and almost every one of their songs was a duet, where they were paired with a superstar music performer, like "Shy Ronnie," with Rihanna, "I Just Had Sex" with Akon and what is likely the most memorable of all of the songs from that series, Justin Timberlake, performing "Dick In A Box."
The album Incredibad featured more of that material and I had to select this song becuase it still gets a chuckle out of me... probably because of the intended smack at LL Cool J and his song "Around The Way Girl" included here.
My choice for Day 24 is The Lonely Island - "Punch You In The Jeans"
