Wild Thing- Senator Bobby

[FreeThinker]

Back in the winter of 1967, our family was an a shopping trip in Kansas City and we were zooming along on I-35 when WHB played this hilarious recording of the Hardly-Worthit Players doing a spoof of Bobby Kennedy singing "Wild Thing", the original of which was also big back then. My father, at 65 mph in a 65 Impala with no seat belts, lost it. I just found this on You Tube and even 45 years later, it's hilarious if you remember the Kennedys back in the day. "A little bit more of a 'liberal' interpretation, Senator."

[The Pecman]

That was a great record, somewhat hard to find on CD (but did come out on the Cameo-Parkway boxed set a few years ago). The follow-up, "Mellow Yellow," is also very funny. Unfortunately, the guys who put out those hits were out of work once poor Bobby Kennedy got assassinated in June of '68. I think that's one reason the songs are so obscure today.

It's sobering to recall that a similar thing happened to comedian Vaughn Meader, who had a whole career impersonating John F. Kennedy with those early-1960s "First Family" records. A week after JFK was killed, controversial comedian Lenny Bruce quipped in a nightclub, "Lee Harvey Oswald took out two people with his bullet: JFK and Vaughn Meader's career." A tasteless joke, to be sure, but also sadly funny and very true.

[FreeThinker]

Oh, yes. I've downloaded The First Family from my Russian mp3 site and it is a scream, even if you don't understand the cultural references to 1961 TV commercials! "Yes, we shall pursue that with great viguh!"

"Yes, we found that 34% of our family had fewer cavities when they brushed with Crest."

[JamesSavik]

Someone did a much later version of this song using Richard Nixon but it's just... creepy.

[The Pecman]

Oh, yes. I've downloaded The First Family from my Russian mp3 site and it is a scream, even if you don't understand the cultural references to 1961 TV commercials!

"And the, ah, rubber swan... is mine!"

Only people who can remember the 1960s know punch-lines like this. We played this record to death in my house in 1962, when I was a little kid.

[Paul_and_Paco]

Not a child of the sixties, seventies, or eighties... but I happen to love "Rock Around the Crucifix" by Pontius Pilate and His Nail-drinving Five, and who could forget "Plastic Jesus"?