In another thread someone mentioned Spike Jones of fond memory from my childhood and I got to wondering whether he is familiar to more recent music fans or has he faded from the public consciousness.
Unless it’s the guy who directed Being John Malkovich, no.
I do, but I’m old. I doubt if any of my kids know who he was and they’re in their 30’s.
Me, never heard of Spike Jones? You jest. He’s on my iPod (just now listening to the all-chicken version of “Holiday for Strings”).
Moving poll and thread from IMHO to Cafe Society.
I don’t want to admit that I am old enough to have heard of Spike Jones. So hopefully there is a good reason for this question and therefore a good reason for me to come forward now thoroughly humiliated.
I’m 31 … in high school I had a friend who introduced me to him … I’ve heard and read his name many times since then, but had I not had that one friend I would have no idea who he was other than ‘some music guy’
Spike Jones? Hmmm…I’ll have to look through my collection of human heads.*
*My Old Flame is the definitive Spike Jones classic.
I voted “Yes and I know what his music was like”, but I only know because there was a line in some song saying “Spike Jones playing on the jukebox” or something, and I looked him up.
I’ve heard the “Hitler’s face” song, but I wouldn’t have known who it was by otherwise.
ETA:
Yeah, never heard of that one. Looking through my link, the only other song I’ve heard of is All I Want for Christmas Is My Two Front Teeth, and I didn’t know it was by him.
That would be “Up on Cripple Creek” by the Band.
Me and my mate were back at the shack
We had Spike Jones on the box
She said, “I can’t take the way he sings
But I love to hear him talk!”
Poetic license, of course; Spike Jones was the bandleader, not the singer.
P.S.: Ya wanna buy a bunny?
The Bettlebaum bit was huge. He was all over early TV.
Oh yeah, I used to like The Band.
No idea what this means. Another Spike Jones song?
Spike Jones was a genius. I didn’t know much about him until I heard "Cocktails for Two". It may seem a little tame now, but back in the 1940s, it was the wildest thing around.
I’m 21 and I know him because I saw the cartoon Der Führer’s Face and looked up his other songs on youtube.
Because you asked for it: My Old Flame. (Disintegration into anarchy begins at about the 1:05 mark; the “Peter Lorre” performance at 1:29).
Ha! That’s brilliant.
Hawaiian War Chant is another one that starts out normally and quickly devolves into stellar sillieness.
I know his name, but “All I Want for Christmas Is My Two Front Teeth” is the only Spike Jones song I could name.
The trumpet player standing next to Spike Jones in this picture is George Rock, who provided the “child’s” voice on “Two Front Teeth” and “Ya Wanna Buy a Bunny?”
