Allan Sherman
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
Allan Sherman (sometimes incorrectly Alan), November 30, 1924 - November 20, 1973, was an American musician, parodist, satirist, accordionist, and television producer.
Sherman was the creator and original producer of the popular I've Got a Secret (1952-1967), but was fired after a particularly unsuccessful episode (featuring Tony Curtis) that aired June 11, 1958. Later, he found that the little song parodies he performed to amuse his friends and family were taking a life of their own. He released an LP of these parodies, My Son, the Folk Singer, in 1962. The album was so successful that it was quickly followed by My Son, the Celebrity.
The first two LPs were mainly Jewish-folk-culture rewritings of old folk tunes (as suggested by the albums' titles), and his first minor hit was Sarah Jackman, a takeoff of Frère Jacques in which he and a woman (Christine Nelson) exchange family gossip (Sarah Jackman, Sarah Jackman, How's by you? How's by you? How's by you the family? How's your sister Emily? etc.) By his peak with My Son, the Nut in 1963, Sherman had begun to appeal to a larger audience, and broadened both his subject matter and his choice of parody material.
In My Nut alone, his pointed parodies of classical and popular tunes savaged summer camp ("Hello Muddah, Hello Fadduh" to the tune of Ponchielli's Dance of the Hours), encroaching automation in the workforce ("Automation" to the tune of "Fascination"), space travel ("Eight Foot Two, Solid Blue" to "Five Foot Two, Eyes of Blue"), the exodus to the suburbs, ("Here's to the Crabgrass" to the tune of "English Country Garden"), and his own bloated figure ("Hail to Thee, Fat Person", which blames his obesity on the Marshall Plan).
At the height of his popularity in 1965, Sherman published an autobiography, A Gift of Laughter. For a short period, Sherman was culturally ubiquitous. He sang on and guest-hosted The Tonight Show, appeared in the Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade, and narrated his own version of Prokofiev's Peter and the Wolf with the Boston Pops under Arthur Fiedler (this concert was released as an album Peter and the Commissar). A children's book version of "Hello Muddah, Hello Faddah" with illustrations by Syd Hoff was released. A pirate album, More Folk Songs by Allan Sherman and His Friends, contained two parodies Sherman had recorded in the early 1950s with material by other artists.
Later albums grew more pointedly satirical and less light-hearted as the decade lost its innocence, and Sherman took up his pen to skewer protesting students ("The Rebel"), consumer debt ("A Waste of Money" to "A Taste of Honey"), and the generation gap ("Downtown", "Pop Hates the Beatles").
Allan Sherman's large body of parody work (over 100 recorded parodies in 5 years) was brilliant on many levels: His choice of material was itself funny, his lyrics were self-contained and consistently funny (and usually led to a climactic punchline), and yet spookily paralleled the sounds of the original, and his choice of topics was always timely and relevant. Finally, his humor was charming, self-deprecating, insightful, and never seemed to be trying too hard. His brilliance inspired a new generation of developing parodists such as "Weird Al" Yankovic, who pays homage to Sherman (for the sharp-eyed) on the cover of his own first LP. Sherman is also credited with introducing Bill Cosby to a national audience, and thus launching that popular entertainer's career.
Like his contemporary Tom Lehrer, Sherman wrote satirical songs for the two-year-long "highbrow" satire program (the American version) That Was The Week That Was (1964-1965), including his Dropout's March. Unfortunately, his topics were often relevant only to his own time and place; unlike most of Lehrer's, Sherman's parodies generally don't date or travel very well. But anyone familiar with the American concerns of the era will still find all his songs hilarious. And a few are timeless -- "Hello Muddah", the abovementioned story of the boy from Camp Granada, is as fresh now as ever, and has been translated into other languages: Sweden, for example, has translated and adopted the song as its own.
Sherman's creative career was rather short. After its peak in 1963, his popularity declined precipitously during 1964 and by 1965 he had released two albums that didn't make the top 50. In 1966 Warner Brothers dropped him from the label. Disillusioned but still creative, in 1973 Sherman published the controversial "The Rape of the A*P*E*", which detailed his point of view on American Puritanism and the sexual revolution. He was struggling with lung disease during the book's writing, and he finally succumbed to emphysema in November of 1973 at the age of 48.
Sherman's personal life was rather miserable, both before and after his sudden success as a singer-songwriter. An excellent biographical article details his rise and fall, as well as the follow-on story of his son Robert Sherman, who was the original "Boy from Camp Granada".
Allan Sherman was interred in the Hillside Memorial Park Cemetery in Culver City, California.
His works were not forgotten after his death: a "Best of" CD was released in 1990 and a musical revue of his songs entitled "Hello Muddah, Hello Faddah" toured in 2003. "The Rape of the A*P*E*" is once again topical and actively sought-after, though rare.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allan_Sherman
Eight Foot Two Solid Blue :: Allan Sherman
(parody of "Chim Chim Cheree" by Dick Van Dyke,
from the movie "Mary Poppins"
Chim chiminey, chim chiminey, chim-chim-cheree;
Those are three words that don't make sense to me.
But I'm used to words that don't make sense to me,
From all those commercials I see on TV.
When I see an ad that can't be understood
I know that the product has got to be good;
Those words may be crazy, but I think they're great,
Like sodium acetylsalicylate.
(Sodium acetylsalicylate!)
I wake up each morning a most happy man,
I cover my Pic-O-Pay with Fluoristan;
I add Hexachlorophene, 'cause it's so pure,
And then GL-70, just to make sure.
Then I take a shower, but never alone;
I'm in there with Dermasil and Silicone.
I brush Vitrol-D on my Lanolin wave,
And I sharpen my Boo-boop, and use it to shave!
(He sharpens his Boo-boop, and that's how he shaves!)
There's Tufsyn, and Retsyn, and Acrylan too,
And Marfac and Melmac and what else is new?
There's Orlon and Korlan, and there's Accutron,
And Teflon, and Ban-Lon, and so on and on.
These wonderful words spin around in my brain;
Each one is a mystery I cannot explain.
Like what does that Blue Magic whitener do --
Does it make blue things white, or make white things blue?
(His blue things are white, and his white things are blue!)
My Fastback has Wide-Track and Autronic Eye,
Which winks when a cute little Volvo goes by;
My tank full of Platformate starts with a roar,
But when I try to stop, it goes two miles more.
I measure my breathing with my Nasograph,
It's nice, but oh my, how it hurts when I laugh.
My chair is upholstered in real Naugahyde;
When they killed that nauga, I sat down and cried.
(He moved to Chicaga when that nauga died!)
I'm giving a party next Saturday night
And here are the friends that I'm going to invite:
The giant who lives in my washing machine,
That other nice giant, who's jolly and green.
The tiger who causes my gas tank to flood,
That handsome white knight who is stronger than crud;
The man with the eyepatch, who sells me my shirts
And that nut who flies into the front seat for Hertz!
(That daring young nut who goes flying for Hertz!)
I've lived all my life in this weird wonderland;
I keep buying things that I don't understand,
'Cause they promise me miracles, magic, and hope,
But, somehow, it always turns out to be soap.
And they might as well be Chim-Chiminey Cheree!
(Those words all could be Chim-Chiminey Cheree!)
[email protected]
