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Novelties - All But Forgotten

My wife and I saw the Smothers Brothers in Las Vegas a few years ago and they're as funny (and political) as they ever were. One of my favorite Smothers Brothers routines began with Tommy complaining that he wasn't allowed to be best man at Dick's wedding until he (Tommy) asked Mom. Of course Mom said he could be best man. Then he said, "After the wedding we all went over to the conception and had a good time over there." The audience roared with laughter. An embarrassed Dick said, "He means reception!' Not 'conception,' Tommy---reception." Tommy replied, "Oh, I must have gone into the wrong room." :D
 
Oh, man that's funny, and it's pure Smothers Brothers too. Maybe radio and music have just become too big business to have a sense of humor any more. It's like trying to poke fun at General Motors from the "inside". Looking at the lists of past novelty hits, a lot of them were on small or independent labels. (Liberty became a major in the 60's, but they were "the house that Alvin built.") Not that there aren't plenty of small indie labels now in this DIY era, but most of them are "too hip to live." Weird Al aside, everybody wants to be a SERIOUS MUSICIAN now; being called an entertainer seems almost an insult. And yet, isn't that what it's all about?
 
One thing though about novelties that works against them is that when they're hot, they're so damn hot you can't get away from them (Disco Duck, The Streak, etc; or at Xmas, Grandma Got Run Over... or The Chipmunk Song.) I don't know if it's so much the audience that burns out on them as DJS and programmers who play them constantly for weeks or months then (perhaps understandably) never want to hear them again; so they get cast aside after that big flare-up of popularity. But they're still part of the audience's memory along with the rockers and ballads.
 
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