This was something Fred Sanford said the the episode “Lamont Goes African,” after telling the Big Dummy that he that “that stuff went out with Conkoleen hair stuff.”
Was/is there really some product called “Conkoleen?” (I’ve never seen the product, so I don’t know how to say it.)
I’ve definitely heard the term conk' referring to the head, or more specifically, a processed’ hairdo. Now you’ve got me wondering not only whether there was a product, but which was named after which.
No Google hits at all for “Conkoleen”.
One hit for “conk” having to do with hairstyles.
My guess is that it is a jab at AfroSheen.
The Valmor Products Company of Chicago marketed stuff called “Gro-Strate” back in the 1920s-30s.
“BAD HAIR makes him sad and unattractive…UGLY HAIR spoils her pretty face…Then they both used Gro-Strate: SEE THESE RESULTS!..Now his hair is slick and HE IS HAPPY…Her hair is now straight and pretty and SHE IS LOVELY…NOW THEY ARE BOTH TOGETHER, THANKS TO GRO-STRATE.”
Terry Zwigoff (director of the CRUMB documentary) wrote “The Valmor Story” in issue 18 of WEIRDO comics (1986). See also
Actually, I think the Cab Calloway connection is getting close, although it (the product) might just be a made-up name. In the same episode, Fred is telling Lamont and his newly-Africanized friends (one of them portrayed by the lovely Paula Kelly) the in his (Fred’s) younger days, he had had his hair “fried, dyed, and laid to the side, like Cab Calloway.”
The reference you are looking for appears to be “congolene”. The American Heritage dictionary recognizes it as the possible etymology for “conk”.
From notes on John Lee Hooker’s “Process”:
http://blueslyrics.tripod.com/lyrics/john_lee_hooker/process.htm