# Tom Lehrer sells out! **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [December 22, 2009, 2:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tom-lehrer-sells-out/522151 "2009-12-22T02:45:57Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 10\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![rowrrbazzle](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rowrrbazzle/32/414_2.png) [@rowrrbazzle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rowrrbazzle)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2009, 2:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tom-lehrer-sells-out/522151/1 "2009-12-22T02:45:57Z")
Well, sort of. This is a 1967 industrial film he did for Dodge. [![]( " - YouTube") ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n7_sHweN3Po) ---
**Author:** ![dropzone](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dropzone/32/7515_2.png) [@dropzone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dropzone)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2009, 2:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tom-lehrer-sells-out/522151/2 "2009-12-22T02:53:50Z")
You don’t remember th '67 Dodges, do you? Coronets and Chargers with REAL Hemis? Darts into which you could push a Hemi? Tain’t selling out. ETA: God, I’ve seen this before! ---
**Author:** ![dropzone](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dropzone/32/7515_2.png) [@dropzone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dropzone)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2009, 2:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tom-lehrer-sells-out/522151/3 "2009-12-22T02:58:20Z")
AND a Polara with a 440 Wedge! ---
**Author:** ![Kent\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kent_clark/32/105_2.png) [@Kent\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kent_Clark)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2009, 3:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tom-lehrer-sells-out/522151/4 "2009-12-22T03:20:09Z")
After songs like New Math and Poisoning Pigeons in the Park, Tom Leher could do industrial films for napalm and he’d still be okay in my book. ---
**Author:** ![thirdname](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/d07c76/32.png) [@thirdname](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thirdname)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2009, 4:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tom-lehrer-sells-out/522151/5 "2009-12-22T04:15:28Z")
Here’s what he said in an interview that appears to be from 2000: [TRIBUNTOGEL ⯮ Link Situs Toto Online Resmi Peringkat 1 Indonesia](http://www.crazycollege.org/lehrer.html) > [@](#): > > GEO: Back in 1967 you performed in a brief promotional film for Dodge automobiles. > > TOM LEHRER: Oh, my yes. One thinks these things are really obscure. But now with the Internet and with all these people ferreting around, everything has turned up! I did an industrial film in approximately '67 for Dodge cars for showing to the salesmen. I wrote the songs and performed them on film. I can’t imagine that something that was done for an industrial show in 1967 would surface. I was hoping that would disappear, too. Anything that is out that, someone will find. > > \>GEO: It shows you how hungry people are for your material. > > TOM LEHRER: Well, people also like to top one another. “I know this thing that you don’t know” and “I have this that you don’t have.” – even though it may not be any good. The Dodge thing was actually a lot of fun. The movie Cat Ballou had just come out and the idea was that I would be like Stubby Kaye and Nat King Cole who in that movie would appear from time to time to sing the Ballad of Cat Ballou. So we went out to Arizona and shot this footage. > > \>GEO: Soon after that you wrote ten songs for “The Electric Company”, a series for older kids on PBS from the people who created Sesame Street. > > TOM LEHRER: That was in the early Seventies. Now, that was wonderful. Here’s one of the Electric Company songs: [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XxVoHqgemWE&feature=related](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XxVoHqgemWE&feature=related) ---
**Author:** ![Nametag](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/nametag/32/406_2.png) [@Nametag](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nametag)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2009, 7:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tom-lehrer-sells-out/522151/6 "2009-12-22T07:27:14Z")
Holy crap, that was Tom Lehrer? I haven’t heard that song since I was a kid, but I’ve always remembered “Immediate-L-Y”! ---
**Author:** ![Bytegeist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/9dc877/32.png) [@Bytegeist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bytegeist)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2009, 4:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tom-lehrer-sells-out/522151/7 "2009-12-22T16:43:40Z")
> [@Nametag](#): > > Holy crap, that was Tom Lehrer? I haven’t heard that song since I was a kid, but I’ve always remembered “Immediate-L-Y”! He also wrote and sang _Silent E_ for The Electric Company. - Who can turn a cub … into a cube? Who can turn a tub … into a tube? \* The silent E in that cartoon always creeped me out a little. It seemed to have this permanent, open-mouthed demonic grin, like a gargoyle. Plus, it was going around turning perfectly innocent bystanders into inanimate objects — kind of like the monstrous bratty kid in that one Twilight Zone episode, who has transmutational powers, and at one point turns his neighbor into a hideous jack-in-the-box. But I’m digressing. I suppose we can’t blame Tom Lehrer for any of that. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [December 23, 2009, 7:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tom-lehrer-sells-out/522151/8 "2009-12-23T07:03:29Z")
We were all sexist, racist pigs back then, weren’t we? I had to list to “We’ll All Go Together When We Go” to cheer up. But good find. Silent E and LY are in one of his boxed sets, by the way. ---
**Author:** ![rowrrbazzle](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rowrrbazzle/32/414_2.png) [@rowrrbazzle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rowrrbazzle)\ **Post date:** [December 28, 2009, 7:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tom-lehrer-sells-out/522151/9 "2009-12-28T19:41:26Z")
**thirdname** , thanks for the interview! At the bottom of the page is a copyright notice dated 1994. Also, he says in the interview that he’s 66, which also makes the date 1994. ---
**Author:** ![Hypno-Toad](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/b2d939/32.png) [@Hypno-Toad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hypno-Toad)\ **Post date:** [December 28, 2009, 8:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tom-lehrer-sells-out/522151/10 "2009-12-28T20:04:04Z")
“That miserable Corvair” breaks me up.