May everyone’s New Year be off to as sunny, bright and choreography filled a start as this romp through cheesy video effects and bouncy hair is. I hope you go-go-GO wherever you are (and turn off the hideously obnoxious Google advertising that sucks up the bottom quarter of the screen so as not to lose the thighs, crotches and go-go boots it so insensitively covers up).
Last night Donny Osmond bagged an almost perfect score doing the Cha-Cha to my song, “September”, on Dancing With The Stars. In his former life as an Osmond he and his brothers took on my follow-up Earth Wind & Fire hit, “Boogie Wonderland”. What makes the latter performance in Provo, Utah in 1980 kwalify as Kitsch isn’t so much that Donny’s singing is uncharacteristically off, flatter than an iceskating rink in spots, but that the lyric changes made to suit Mormon sensibilities are so odd:
Original Boogie Wonderland: “You say your prayers though you don’t care. You dance and shake the hurt.” / Osmondized: “You never felt vibrations quite like this in Wonderland.”
Now, not only am I not against lyric changes when someone covers my songs (after the original, correct version is out), I’m rarely concerned with preserving the sanctity of the original record and always more interested in the individuality expressed in a new version. But I don’t understand what was so offensive about the original Boogie Wonderland lyric. I guess it was the word ‘prayers’ and the fact that you might momentarily not have faith in them when your life has crashed to the ground as the lines previous to it set up: “Midnight creeps so slowly into hearts of men who need more than they get./Daylight deals a bad hand to a woman who has laid too many bets./ The mirror stares you in the face and says ‘baby, uh uh, it don’t work…”)
Original Boogie Wonderland: “I chase my vinyl dreams to Boogie Wonderland.”/ Osmondized: “I chase my crazy dreams to Boogie Wonderland.”
I guess they thought vinyl was some kind of sex costume or toy… I meant vinyl as in plain ol’ 33-1/3.
To Kitsch in Provo and Donny winning the prize!
One of the first rituals I ever remember doing with total religious fervor was eating my lunch every day with Soupy Sales. “Lunch with Soupy Sales”, his landmark kids show that launched in my hometown, Detroit, in 1953 and ran there exclusively until 1957 when it went nationwide on ABC, was mandatory noon viewing accompanied by my staple of one half peanut butter and jelly and one half tuna sandwich with a large glass of Sealtest milk spiked with several hits of Bosco.
Like the other zillions of kids watching I was into Pookie, Black Tooth and especially White Fang. But what I really dug, which I can’t believe I sensed at such an early age, was how free-form and irreverent Soupy was as a host, seemingly performing for his friends in the studio, lots of adlibs, in-jokes and laughing at himself. I remember thinking this guy knows how to throw a great party. All the other kids shows, all of which I also watched and loved, seemed very stiff compared to Soupy so he became one of my first genuine role models.
In 1965, Soupy put out a record called “Do The Mouse”. I went crazy for the little dance he did because rather than just putting his hands up to his head for ears he was always wiggling his fingers and I never saw a mouses’ ears move like that before.
Although the song was a classic sing-along type pop song, the track and vocal had elements of R&B and Soupy’s phrasing, especially in the chorus, was classic Soul. As I was living in Detroit, from whence Motown was born, this kind of music was all around me. Though Do The Mouse’s lyrics may have been exempt, the musicianship was totally influenced by the city the song was cut in which, of course, made me love it even more.
In honor of Soupy’s passing last week, I dug out my “Do The Mouse” hat, one of the more obscure pieces of Soupy memorabilia.
I have a Soupy puppet, which I’ve seen a bunch of online over the past few days, and the much rarer Soupy marionette.
But I haven’t seen the hat, which I put on as I combed YouTube for Soupy doing The Mouse. There’s a couple minutes of stuff before the singing and fantastic Mouse choreography starts but it’s all worth seeing because this guy was a classic casual yet frenetic showman who was way before his time. Sales was instrumental to what TV became as more and more personalities understood it wasn’t about a camera being pointed at you as you were performing so much as being in the middle of someone’s living room, connecting with the guests and keeping the party going.
This starts out looking like a performance in a dinner theater and quickly spirals into something out of “Hair”. Between ‘costumes’ from much earlier in the ’70s than when my song came out and the exceedingly Caucasian phrasing of the lyrics and choreography this is, in a Kitsch lovers universe, a stupendous rendition of “September”.
If you live in Los Angeles, come to Ghettogloss on Monday night, September 21 (“Do you remember the 21st night of September?”) for a party commemorating the opening of The Allee Willis Museum of Kitsch featuring karaoke versions of this song that changed the course of my career. Hopefully, you’re as skilled as the folks who took the stage at Abilene High.
A couple of weeks ago I featured the world’s happiest gal dancing to my song “Neutron Dance”. Now, the Krown Princess of Kitsch Khoreography turns her attention to the sweeping horns and strings and theatrical chorus melody of another one of my most danced-to songs. Black leather against backlit drapes encourages an even more dramatic performance, made exceptionally special by how the dancer’s mouth moves aggressively though rarely quite mouthing the words. Other favorite aspects of the performance are the freeze poses and excellent recovery from a stumble in the first chorus. The moves in the instrumental are especially impressive. Kudos from the author to this Neutron Dancer in Boogie Wonderland!
PLAY THIS VIDEO!:
I’ve seen many improvised dances to my Pointer Sisters song “Neutron Dance” but this girl has a better time kutting loose inside the klutches of Kitch than anyone I’ve ever seen. Describing her style as “Improvisational freestyle spontaneous informal interpretive dancing” Aremisbell, real name Diana Campanella, dances to more high energy songs on YouTube than Madonna. With mouth and finger action for days and pixie-like prancing in overdrive she is, in fact, SO HAPPY doin’ the Neutron Dance. And that makes me SO HAPPY for having written it.
3″ round tortoise shell plastic keyring from 1979 with grooves like a vinyl record and raised gold Disco dancers whose silhouettes look more like they’re on their way to an Anne Murray concert than to Studio 54. The back has a glass mirror, long broken, that says “Hot To Trot”, as if that were a slogan of the late 70’s and not property of the Bobby Soxers three decades earlier. Manufactured by Bromac, which sounds more like a company that makes antacid than Disco products. All in all, everything misses the mark just enough to make this a Kitsch lover’s dream.
I only met Michael Jackson once. It was 1980 and I was at Hollywood Sound recording with Earth Wind & Fire and he was working in the room next door. This was before Billy Jean shot him into the stratosphere but Michael Jackson was still a music God. He walked over to me but as he gave me a big grin and very gentle almost-handshake someone burst into the studio and said Richard Pryor had set himself on fire. Everyone just froze and I quietly slipped out of the room. Those old school recording studios are as soundproof as tombs but I could hear all the commotion in the lobby as he ran out.
Though many of my friends co-wrote many of his classic songs I never wrote for Michael until a few months ago when Steve Porcaro, of Toto and ‘Human Nature’ fame, called and said Michael had called him looking for hit singles. We worked on and off over the next few months and finished a fantastic lush and layered Human Nature type song called “The Little Things”. Though Michael never got to hear it, the Man In The Mirror type chant that opens it will forever remind me of him.
This 1984 Limited Edition Michael Jackson “Superstar of the 80’s” Doll features the King in his Beat It outfit. He came with ‘glittering “Magic” Glove and microphone’ but I’ve lost those over the years. Thriller, Billy Jean, American Music Awards and Grammy outfits were also available. He twists at the waist and bends with moveable arms so you can “recreate his famous dance steps”.
I’ll break open the 1984 box of Michael Jackson Dress-Up Set Colorforms on another Kitsch O’ The Day within the next few days. R.I. P. M.J.
One of the most spectacular examples of television Kitsch are reruns of The Lawrence Welk Show, 1955 to ’82, on PBS. My favorites are late 60’s/ early 70’s with their over-saturated technicolorish hues, cheesy sets and costumes, massive bouffants and Disco tweaked JFK hair helmets, bouncy musicians, extreme middle of the road interpretations of old and new pop songs, insert shots of the dancing octogenarian audience, not to mention the thicker than wiener schnitzel German accent of the wunnerful, wunnerful host himself, Mr. Champagne Music, Lawrence Welk.
His dedicated group of sidekicks included accordionist Myron Floren, his son-in-law, ex Mouseketeer Bobby Burgess, and platinum follicled pianist, JoAnn Castle, of whom TV Guide said, “Castle doesn’t tickle the Ivories, she hammers them—as if she is building the piano instead of playing it.” Appropriately sponsored by Geritol, a health tonic that zoomed to popularity in the post Atomic Age, The Lawrence Welk Show is a Kitsch lover’s Woodstock.
Mr. Welk embraced merchandising, including his ever popular ashtrays, bubbles and musical spoons but the accordion vase is among the most collectible of his stable.
Welk’s Big Hit:
JoAnn’s big hair:
Really really nasty cheap packaging on this pack of gum and 6 “full color” movie cards put out by Paramount Pictures Corp in 1977. Six dark photos printed on incredibly flimsy barely card stock, the back of which looks to be a cut up overstock movie poster with nary a fact about John Travolta or the film printed anywhere. Boasting that the Super Bubble gum inside blows larger bubbles I doubt it very much as there’s only half a stick of gum included – not a even a full pancake of dextrose and corn syrup. Such a classic film is worthy of a finer chewing experience, altho the packaging catapults this to high Kitsch status.
