We're kicking back this Labor Day weekend and enjoying some great music. Last week it was the varied sounds of the incomparable Declan McManus a.k.a. Elvis Costello. This week it's the equally incomparable Raymond Scott.
Much Raymond Scott material I had never heard before has been released in recent years. The albums are available on YouTube and all the streaming services, albeit apparently not on DVD or vinyl.
There is a rather amazing YouTube channel featuring tremendous music by Scott, including playlists for the Quintettes and his Orchestra.
The latest on these releases from Raymond Scott.net: "A new series of five 20-track digital compilations presents remastered recordings — many never previously released — of Raymond Scott's Works for Orchestra. Spanning 1935 to 1957, these 100 tracks highlight Scott's adventurous and eclectic approaches to composing and scoring for large ensembles.
Most tracks were transferred from discs in the Scott collection at the Marr Sound Archives, with digital restorations produced by Scott historian/curator Irwin Chusid.
The five sets include dozens of Scott originals — including some early Quintette titles arranged for orchestra — and a handful of cover versions. These collections are available on Spotify, Apple Music, and all digital retail and streaming platforms."
"Raymond Scott: Quintettes or Less presents two 20-track digital (only) collections of mostly previously unreleased Scott recordings featuring the composer working with bands of less than seven players. Scott's original 1937–1939 "Quintette" actually had six members, so we're going with Raymond's math in curating these sets.
"Lots of surprises, including RSQ alternates and early versions, crisp radio performances, and previously unheard 1940s quintets and sextets. Curated and restored by Irwin Chusid. Both sets are available on Spotify, Apple Music, and all digital retail and streaming platforms."
Do we at Way Too Damn Lazy To Write A Blog have a single favorite musical composition to ever appear in a cartoon? Well, there may be a 45-way tie, but, without a doubt, atop the list would be Raymond Scott's "The Toy Trumpet."
We've missed Jeff and the group a great deal since leaving California for upstate New York in 2016. Happy to see a new release from them. Happy Labor Day Weekend!
Today, we transition from our obsession with animated cartoons to our equally strong and enduring obsession with 20th century music. One of our favorites, bar none, is Elvis Costello, born on August 25, 1954.
One reason that he, along with the late (and much missed) Alex Chilton, remains a favorite recording artist is an absolutely uncanny ability to cover an extremely diverse range of songs, genres and styles/eras of music with flair and panache.
Here's Elvis with another of our favorites at this blog, Stephen Colbert.
The first time I recall seeing Elvis Costello was on an excellent episode of Saturday Night Live way back in the 1970's.
Costello, the smartest and meanest singer/songwriter in the first wave of 1970s British punk rockers, first arrived as a sneering spitfire (with just a touch of nudge nudge wink wink), backed by The Attractions, an outstanding band which could match his ferocity and up the ante with high-level musicianship.
The lengthy entry on Elvis Costello at All Music.com, indubitably A LOT less enthusiastic and open-minded about his music than the (occasionally) humble scribe who writes this blog is, writes "Elvis Costello soon galloped away from the loud, fast rules of punk rock, demonstrating his musical and verbal facility with Armed Forces, a 1979 album that contained "Oliver's Army," "Accidents Will Happen," and his cover of Nick Lowe's "(What's So Funny About) Peace, Love and Understanding."
All Music.com adds, "rapid musical evolution and switches in style became the rule in Costello's career, as he amassed a catalog that seemed to touch upon every conceivable genre of popular music. Starting with 1989's Spike, Costello seized the freewheeling opportunities of a solo act, bouncing from dense pop to classical compositions to collaborations with 1960's icons Paul McCartney and Burt Bacharach."
"This sense of adventure increased in the 2000s as he toured with the Imposters, cut Americana albums with his old cohort T-Bone Burnett, and collaborated with both New Orleans R&B legend Allen Toussaint
and the venerated hip-hop group the Roots."
The son of British bandleader Ross McManus, Costello (born Declan McManus) worked as a computer programmer during the early '70s, performing under the name D.P. Costello in various folk clubs. In 1976, he became the leader of country-rock group Flip City. During this time, he recorded several demo tapes of his original material with the intention of landing a record contract. A copy of these tapes made its way to Jake Riviera, one of the heads of the fledgling independent record label Stiff.
Riviera signed Costello to Stiff as a solo artist in 1977; the singer/songwriter adopted the name Elvis Costello at this time, taking his first name from Elvis Presley and his last name from his mother's maiden name.
With former Brinsley Schwarz bassist Nick Lowe producing, Costello began recording his debut album with the American band Clover (later known as Huey Lewis & The News) providing support. "Less Than Zero," the first single released from these sessions, appeared in April of 1977.
By the summer of 1977, Costello's permanent backing band had been assembled. Featuring bassist Bruce Thomas, keyboardist Steve Nieve, and drummer Pete Thomas, the group was named The Attractions; they made their live debut in July of 1977.
Costello's debut album, My Aim Is True, was released in the summer of 1977 to positive reviews.
Along with Nick Lowe, Ian Dury, and Wreckless Eric, Costello participated in the Stiff label's Live package tour in the fall. At the end of the year, Jake Riviera split from Stiff to form Radar Records, taking Costello and Lowe with him. Costello's last single for Stiff, the reggae-inflected "Watching the Detectives," became his first hit.
This Year's Model, Costello's first album recorded with The Attractions, was released in the spring of 1978. A rawer, harder-rocking record than My Aim Is True, This Year's Model was also a bigger hit, reaching number four in Britain and number 30 in America.
Released the following year, Armed Forces was a more ambitious and musically diverse album than either of his previous records. It was another hit, reaching number two in the U.K. and cracking the Top Ten in the U.S.
In the summer of 1979, he produced the self-titled debut album by The Specials, the leaders of the ska revival movement. In February of 1980, the soul-influenced Get Happy!! was released; it was the first record on Riviera's new label, F-Beat Records.
Later that year, a collection of B-sides, singles, and outtakes called Taking Liberties was released in America; in Britain, a similar album called Ten Bloody Marys & Ten How's Your Fathers appeared as a cassette-only release, complete with different tracks than the American version.
Costello and The Attractions released Trust in early 1981; it was Costello's fifth album in a row produced by Nick Lowe.
Costello's next album, Imperial Bedroom (1982), was an ambitious set of lushly arranged pop produced by Geoff Emerick, who engineered several of The Beatles' most acclaimed albums.
Costello tried to replicate the success of Punch the Clock with his next record, 1984's Goodbye Cruel World.
After the release of Goodbye Cruel World, Costello embarked on his first solo tour in the summer of 1984. He was relatively inactive in 1985, releasing only one new single ("The People's Limousine," a collaboration with singer/songwriter T-Bone Burnett issued under the name the Coward Brothers) and producing Rum Sodomy and the Lash, the second album by the punk-folk band The Pogues. Both projects were indications that he was moving toward a stripped-down, folky approach, and 1986's King of America confirmed that suspicion. Recorded without The Attractions and released under the name The Costello Show,
King of America was essentially a country-folk record, and it received the best reviews of any album he had recorded since Imperial Bedroom.
During 1987, Costello negotiated a new worldwide record contract with Warner Bros. and began a songwriting collaboration with Paul McCartney.
Two years later, he released Spike, the most musically diverse collection he had ever recorded.
Spike featured the first appearance of songs written by Costello and McCartney, including the single "Veronica."
Two years later, he released Mighty Like a Rose, which echoed Spike in its diversity, yet it was a darker, more challenging record.
In 1993, Costello collaborated with the Brodsky Quartet on The Juliet Letters, a song cycle that was the songwriter's first attempt at classical music.
That same year, Costello licensed the rights to his pre-1987 catalog (My Aim Is True to Blood and Chocolate) to Rykodisc in America. Costello reunited with The Attractions to record the majority of 1994's Brutal Youth, the most straightforward and pop-oriented album he had recorded since Goodbye Cruel World. The Attractions backed Costello on a worldwide tour in 1994 and played concerts with him throughout 1995. In 1995, he released his long-shelved collection of covers, Kojak Variety.
In the spring of 1996, Costello released All This Useless Beauty, which featured a number of original songs he had given to other artists but never recorded himself.
A jazz version of the record made with Bill Frisell was put on hold when Costello's label began to freeze up due to political maneuvering.
Undaunted, Costello and Bacharach hit the road and performed in the States and Europe. Then, after Bacharach left, Costello added Steve Nieve to the tour and traveled around the world on what they dubbed the Lonely World Tour. This took them into 1999, when both Notting Hill and Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me featured significant contributions from Costello. In fact, he appeared with Bacharach in the latter as one of a pair of Carnaby Street musicians, albeit street musicians with a gorgeous grand piano at their disposal.
In 2003, he returned with North, a collection of classically styled pop songs pitched halfway between Gershwin and Sondheim.
That fall, Costello released two albums of his own original material: a classical work entitled Il Sogno and the rock music concept album The Delivery Man, featuring The Imposters.
Issued in 2006, My Flame Burns Blue was a live album with Costello fronting the 52-piece jazz orchestra the Metropole Orkest; the release featured classic Costello songs (with new orchestral arrangements) alongside new compositions and a performance of Il Sogno in its entirety.
The next year or so was relatively quiet, but at the end of 2012 he released a new compilation called In Motion Pictures, which rounded up songs he contributed to films. Costello devoted himself to working with hip-hop band The Roots in 2013. Originally planned as a reinterpretation of songs from his vast catalog, the album
Wise Up Ghost turned into a full-fledged collaboration and was greeted by positive reviews upon its September 2013 release on Blue Note.
In 2015, Costello announced that he was completing work on his memoirs, and that the book, titled Unfaithful Music & Disappearing Ink, was scheduled for publication in October 2015. Costello also compiled a companion album, Unfaithful Music & Soundtrack Album, which featured a career-spanning selection of songs from his catalog, as well as two previously unreleased selections.
In July 2018, Costello revealed that he was recovering from a "small but very aggressive cancer." By the time he delivered the news, he was not only on the mend but had a new album with The Imposters in the can. Look Now, the group's first record together in a decade, appeared in October 2018.
Look Now was followed quickly in 2020 with Hey Clockface, the first album credited to Elvis Costello as a solo act in ten years. Inspired by revisiting the master tapes for "This Year's Model" for a soundtrack contribution to David Simon's The Deuce, Costello decided to rework the album of the same name by preserving the original
Attractions backing tapes and adding new Spanish-language vocals by contemporary Latino musicians such as Juanes.
The resulting Spanish Model appeared in September 2021.
At the same time Costello was working on a new set of songs using the skills of Attractions' drummerPete Thomas and keyboardist Steve Nieve, along with longtime Imposters' bassist Davey Faragher. Recorded remotely, The Boy Named If eschews any hint of introspection in favor of the vitriolic sonic kick of early Costello records and big, tangled emotion. Released in early 2022, the album also features a duet with Nicole Atkins.
For more, check out the Elvis Costello discography - and listen to as many of his recordings as possible.
We extend big time fedora tips to Wikipedia and YouTube, which provided lots and lots and lots of material for this post. Also must credit All Music.com in the acknowledgments, as much as we, diehard music lovers all, loathe their correspondent's mindless fixation on chart success, whether albums and singles made the Top 40 - and frequent use of such cringe-worthy lines as "the album was a commercial and critical failure." Numerous records we absolutely love and can't get enough of at Way Too Damn Lazy To Write A Blog after numerous listenings were "commercial and critical failures."
Today, we do a rare midweek post to pay tribute to the one, the only Friz Freleng (August 21, 1904 - May 26, 1995).
Along with his fellow Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies directors Tex Avery, Chuck Jones, Bob Clampett and Frank Tashlin, Friz Freleng is among the kings of cartoons.
Friz Freleng's seven decade career in cartoons makes him one of our all-time favorites from the world of animation.
He began as an assistant animator with Walt Disney Productions, both in Kansas City and in Los Angeles, and was among the studio's young crew of very talented animators (Ub Iwerks, Hugh Harman, Rudy Ising, Rollin Hamilton) in the 1920's. Friz is in the following photo (from Michael Barrier's website) at the bottom left.
Since both Walt and Friz possessed hot tempers, that didn't go well, as duly noted in the late Jim Korkis' Cartoon Research article The Friz & The Diz. However, Mr. Freleng did get along just fine with fellow ex-Disney animators Hugh Harman and Rudy Ising and would subsequently work on numerous Harman-Ising productions released by Warner Brothers. These included the first Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies.
He would animate and sometimes direct numerous Merrie Melodies cartoons in 1930-1933.
Not long after independent producers Harman and Ising got the boot as cartoonmakers for Warner Bros. and the decision was made to establish an on-site cartoon production unit, Friz would settle in as the main director at the new Leon Schlesinger Studio.
He directed a slew of Merrie Melodies from 1934-1938.
As enthusiastic aficionados of Hollywood star caricatures cartoons, we love Freleng's 1936 Merrie Melodie THE COO COO NUT GROVE.
The Andy Devine sendup in the western spoof My Little Buckaroo (1938) is a hoot!
Freleng briefly ended up at MGM after leaving the Leon Schlesinger Studio in 1938. Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer cartoonmeister Joe Barbera remembers Friz.
While not every comics luminary translates to the silver screen as well as E.C. Segar's Popeye, Freleng's entries in MGM's short-lived animated version of the popular Katzenjammer Kids comic strip, a.k.a. The Captain & The Kids, are quite good.
Upon his return to Warner Brothers in 1940, Friz Freleng began an extended winning streak.
HERR MEETS HARE features Hermann Goering as a villain (as he and his ilk were in real life). A driving force in later Chuck Jones cartoons, Mike Maltese's utter disdain for the bombastic music of Richard Wagner, is a key factor in this gem. Love the commentary by film historian and animation expert Greg Ford.
Another memorable World War II cartoon from Freleng and his crew is Daffy The Commando (1943).
Best expression of the twisted relationship between Bugs Bunny and always moronic Elmer Fudd? STAGE DOOR CARTOON!
HARE TRIGGER and BUGS BUNNY RIDES AGAIN emphatically demonstrates how Freleng and crew (among many, animators Gerry Chiniquy, Ken Champin, Manny Perez, Virgil Ross and Art Davis, storyman Tedd Pierce and all voice artists, led by Mel Blanc) mastered the western spoof. Was Yosemite Sam was based on Friz?
The dynamic between steaming lil' hothead Yosemite Sam and always cooler than cool Bugs Bunny resulted in numerous hilarious cartoons.
Bunker Hill Bunny hit the Bijous, Roxies and Radio City Music Halls on September 23, 1950.
Freleng made a slew of lesser known humdinger cartoons in the late 1940's and through the 1950's.
The extremely funny Each Dawn I Crow was released theatrically on September 24th, 1949.
It is in a sub-genre, along with fellow WB cartoons Tom Turk & Daffy and Holiday For Drumsticks, that features a storyline involving poultry finding a way to not end up as tonight's entree.
And that recalls the hilarious Birds Anonymous, in which Sylvester joins a 12-step group.
To suggest that Mr. Freleng's work as director, animator and producer proved most formidable for well over half a century would be quite the understatement; his re-emergence as co-producer at De Patie-Freleng Enterprises (DFE) resulted in some of the very best animated cartoons of the 1960's and early 1970's. David DePatie remembers:
Here at Way Too Damn Lazy To Write A Blog, we're especially fond of DFE's The Pink Panther - as is the family cat.
As always, the focus on the great work of Friz Freleng brings up how one can thank someone for a million laughs!
The illustrious comedienne, actress, playwright, you-know-what disturber, singer, provocateur and penultimate pre-Code movie star Mae West was born on August 17th.
Still don't know for certain in what year Mae West was born in Brooklyn, New York - and that's okay with us!
Mae would no doubt insist that it's none of our business!
The Travalanche website by Trav S.D. has covered Mae's stage and screen work at length and also presented a West Fest tribute in NYC. In addition, there used to be a very prolific and informative Mae West blog between 2004 and 2022.
A randy Mae West caricature is featured prominently in one of the Ub Iwerks Studio's randy Flip the Frog cartoons. Can't imagine that MGM's Louis B. Mayer, distributor of Ub's cartoons, was thrilled with this one, which also features a flaming gay stereotype a la character actor Tyrell Davis.
Next up, from Fleischer Studios, one of the Color Classics cartoons envisions Mae as a super flirtatious duck.
A character with a pronounced Mae West voice also found her way into a Fleischer Popeye cartoon, which culminates in fisticuffs involving the sultry one and a mad-as-hell Olive Oyl.
One of the very best Walt Disney Silly Symphonies casts Mae as Jenny Wren.
One could argue that Mae West, Wheeler & Woolsey and Betty Boop (along with such extra randy feature films as BABY FACE and THE STORY OF TEMPLE DRAKE) were responsible for the strict enforcement of the Production Code that commenced in July 1934.
As the Lou Costello cat said in Bob Clampett's WB cartoon A TALE OF TWO KITTIES, "if the Hays Office would only let me, I'd give 'em the bird all right." And Mae did just that, having flipped the bluenoses the bird emphatically since the opening of her 1926 play, Sex.
Speaking of randy, Mae's silver screen debut is in the George Raft vehicle NIGHT AFTER NIGHT (1932).
She emphatically stole the show in this and soon would be starring in her own vehicles for Paramount Pictures.
Mae West especially ticked off the bluenose of bluenoses and fun guy Joseph Breen in July 1934 by making SO much money with her first two starring vehicles. SHE DONE HIM WRONG and I'M NO ANGEL.
These wisecracking flicks were considered to have singlehandedly brought struggling Paramount Pictures out of bankruptcy in the depths of the Great Depression!
Mae wrote the distinctively double entendre-packed dialogue for most of her movies.
The only West flick this classic comedy buff is not crazy about remains MY LITTLE CHICKADEE. Mae West and W.C. Fields, two of the greatest comedy performers in the history of motion pictures, were not meant to be in the same film. IMHO, it just doesn't work; looks like, at least onscreen, the duo do not like each other AT ALL.
She's much funnier with goofball comic Victor Moore in THE HEAT'S ON (1943).
Do I want to delve into Mae's last two silver screen appearances? Uh. . . not really.
Then again, we did screen the following "coming detractions" in one of our Psychotronix Film Festival extravaganzas featuring schlocky and MST 3K appropriate trailers. Was disappointed that this never made it to the TRAILERS FROM HELL website.
For more on the life and illustrious show business career of Mae West, check out the episode of AMERICAN MASTERS devoted to her.
Melissa is supported quite well by SNL troupe members Bobby Moynihan, Andy Samberg, Taran Killam and Jason Sudeikis (portraying the late and much-missed Robert Osborne). Love the premise of a rival studio presenting a shameless ripoff of Mae West.
Must extend an appropriately larger-than-life thank you to Mae West for the great entertainment. As memorable as Mae's movies are, imagine what an incredible onstage performer she was.
Following the last post, which celebrated the birthday of Bill Scott and the amazing work of Jay Ward Productions (Rocky & Bullwinkle, Fractured Fairy Tales), am wondering if there were any animated TV series, even one, that proved fundamentally satiric in tone in the same sense as the Jay Ward Productions shows.
Bob Clampett Productions’ Beany & Cecil was contemporaneous with the aforementioned Jay Ward TV series, but not necessarily satiric in approach, the creative use of genius monologuist/performer/vocalist Lord Buckley in the following cartoon notwithstanding.
Until a group of animated TV series that premiered in the late 1980's - the Ralph Bakshi produced Mighty Mouse: The New Adventures and The Simpsons, soon followed by King Of The Hill, The Critic - it’s tough to think of any highly satiric 1960's and 1970's TV-toons offhand other than those of Jay Ward Productions, except one. . . Pantomime Pictures’ Roger Ramjet, created by former UPA director Fred Crippen.
Gene Moss and Jim Thurman were the writers of the series. Paul Shively wrote the lyrics for the show's theme song. The show featured a very talented cast and crew.
The last time Roger Ramjet received a TV run was on Cartoon Network in the latter 1990's.
Both silly and satiric, this series, starring a nincompoop superhero much funnier than live-action TV's Mr. Terrific and Captain Nice, clearly regards treating the "we have no budget for animation, NONE, so let's write incredibly witty scripts in mass quantities and get a crew of very talented comic actors to put 'em over" reality as a mission - and remains one of our favorites at Way Too Damn Lazy To Write A Blog.
Thinking of Roger Ramjet brings to mind the topic of today's post, Gene Moss and Jim Thurman, the two excellent comedians and voice-over actors who wrote many episodes of the series, and, along with fellow voice artists Gary Owens, Joan Gerber, Dick Beals and Bob Arbogast, got big laughs.
Typically, the usual gang of idiots at Way Too Damn Lazy To Write A Blog start posts by asking if anyone has penned books, articles or blog posts on today's topic. Comics artist and writer/director Mark Evanier wrote two very good articles about Thurman and Moss, Roger and Me and Gene Moss and Shrimpenstein, on his News From Me website.
Along with Mr. Evanier, rating high among the usual suspects regarding who has authored pieces on topics we like very much would be Don M. Yowp, Devon Baxter, Steve Stanchfield and especially WFMU's Beware Of The Blog.
WFMU, consistently a source of rather amazing material on many topics way back in the oughts, not at all surprisingly, posted the comprehensive Spooky and Kooky: The Career of Gene Moss. Even less surprisingly, the author of the piece is Kliph Nesteroff, chronicler of American standup comedy, mid-20th century pop culture (including roadside hotels) and Canadian culture par excellence.
From Kliph's article, we see that Gene Moss, among numerous showbiz accomplishments, was responsible for the very entertaining DRACULA’S GREATEST HITS album.
Asking what Moss and Thurman did after 156 episodes of Roger Ramjet and Dracula’s Greatest Hits brings us to The Shrimpenstein Show (1967) an extremely funny and original piece of kidvid produced for KHJ-TV (channel 9 Los Angeles), featuring Gene Moss as Dr. Rudolph Von Schtick and Jim Thurman as Shrimpenstein. The puppet was designed by the legendary Wah Chang. There was even a record, Dr. Von Schtick and The Tijuana Bats, associated with the show.
Produced by Michael Dormer and Lee Teacher, the series, in the Jay Ward Productions and Pantomime Pictures tradition, is designed as much to make the cast and grownups laugh as their kids. Don’t know how long The Shrimpenstein Show was on the air in 1967-1968, but it definitely and emphatically bears the signature of the guys who wrote the Roger Ramjet cartoons. Here is one of the few complete episodes we found posted on YouTube, Daily Motion, Archive.org, Vimeo, etc.
Jim Thurman subsequently worked for many years for Sesame Street and the Children's Television Workshop. Producers of Sesame Street for PBS worked within those rules estabished by Action On Children's Television as best as possible, as did the Schoolhouse Rock series. Thurman and Moss contributed to one of the Children's Television Workshop's very best series, Square One Television, which taught basic math concepts a la Schoolhouse Rock. While generally going more with more sketches than animated cartoons, Square One TV did feature an animated segment that the Roger Ramjet crew - everyone from director Fred Crippen to many of the show's voice artists - worked on. That would be Dirk Niblick of the Math Brigade!
Closing today's post: the question of whether there were any precedents to The Shrimpenstein! Show. The only one I can think of is Ernie Kovacs’ The Kapusta Kid in Outer Space. This Kovacs kidvid adventure aired on his NBC show on December 19, 1955. Wonder if Gene and Jim knew Ernie; they were on a similar wave length.
