Sad 7‑Foot Tall Clown Sings “Pinball Wizard” in the Style of Johnny Cash, and Other Hits by Roy Orbison, Cheap Trick & More

in Comedy, Life, Music, Theatre | April 14th, 2017

Read­ers, are you over­come with the Fri­day Feels?

Pud­dles Pity Par­ty, a 6’8” Pier­rot from Atlanta, empathizes.

The ‘Sad Clown with the Gold­en Voice’ has tak­en to releas­ing emo­tion­al­ly-freight­ed cov­ers on select Fri­days.

There’s some­thing about a giant sad singing clown that com­forts us, let’s us know it’s ok to feel, to show our feel­ings. It’s a sad and beau­ti­ful world, and we’re all in it togeth­er, even when we’re total­ly alone.

So quoth Big Mike Geier, the founder and front­man of the band King­sized, and the man behind Pud­dles’ white make­up and rick­rack-trimmed clown suit.

What­ev­er he’s tapped into, it’s real. The New York Times’ Jason Zin­no­man, in a slight­ly skeeved-out think piece on clowns last year, wrote:

What makes him tran­scend the trope is his vul­ner­a­bil­i­ty. When you first see him charg­ing down the aisle, he’s an intim­i­dat­ing fig­ure, but his body is actu­al­ly not aggres­sive. It slumps, pas­sive­ly. When he asks for a hug, it looks as if he real­ly needs it. He makes you feel bad for find­ing him off-putting, and then he belts out a love­ly song.

Fri­day, March 3 found Pud­dles accom­pa­ny­ing him­self on a red gui­tar for “It’s a Heartache,” a hit for Bon­nie Tyler and lat­er, Rod Stew­art. They both have their strengths, but Pud­dles is unique­ly suit­ed to tap into the heartache of ‘stand­ing in the cold rain, feel­ing like a clown.”

A pre­vi­ous Fri­day Feel, Roy Orbison’s “Cry­ing,” was a fan request. (Yes, he’s still tak­ing them.)

The video for “She’s Gone Again”—previously cov­ered by Don Ho—touch­es on Pud­dles’  obses­sion with actor Kevin Cost­ner.

Feb­ru­ary 10’s Fri­day Feel brought new lis­ten­ers to a younger artist, Brett Den­nen. Pud­dles praised his “Heav­en” as “beau­ti­ful and thought­ful song,” con­fess­ing that he “bare­ly held it togeth­er on this one.” Also see Cheap Trick­’s “I Want You to Want Me” down below.

The piece de resis­tance, where­in the lyrics of Pin­ball Wiz­ard are sung to the tune of Fol­som Prison Blues, is at the top of the page. It’s no great sur­prise that that one’s gone viral. Pud­dles is trans­par­ent, how­ev­er, giv­ing cred­it to the late Gre­go­ry Dean Smal­l­ey, an Atlanta-based song­writer who died of AIDS in the late 90s:

 Back in 1994 or so, I saw (him) per­form this mashup at the Star Com­mu­ni­ty Bar. I was floored. Greg was a force of super­nat­ur­al pro­por­tions and he is missed. Many peo­ple have done it pri­or to me doing it. I guess it was always meant to be.

You can lis­ten to more of Pud­dles Pity Par­ty on Spo­ti­fy, or sup­port the artist with a pur­chase on Google Play or iTunes. Sub­scribe to his youtube chan­nel to stay abreast of future Fri­day Feels, or request a song.

via Boing­Bo­ing

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Watch Stephen Sond­heim Teach a Kid How to Sing “Send In the Clowns”

John­ny Cash & Joe Strum­mer Sing Bob Marley’s “Redemp­tion Song” (2002)       

Hear John­ny Cash Deliv­er Lincoln’s Get­tys­burg Address

Ayun Hal­l­i­day is an author, illus­tra­tor, the­ater mak­er and Chief Pri­ma­tol­o­gist of the East Vil­lage Inky zine.  Fol­low her @AyunHalliday.

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Meet the “Grammar Vigilante,” Hell-Bent on Fixing Grammatical Mistakes on England’s Storefront Signs

in Comedy, English Language, Life | April 10th, 2017

In the age of Banksy, anonymi­ty, ener­gy, and act­ing with­out per­mis­sion com­bine to make a potent brew. Those whose work springs up in a pub­lic set­ting overnight, with­out pri­or announce­ment or trans­ac­tion, are freely assumed to be pas­sion­ate swash­buck­lers, brim­ming with tal­ent and sly social com­men­tary.

But what about an anony­mous mid­dle-aged man who roams the streets of Bris­tol, armed not with sten­cils and spray paint, but a sponge-tipped broom han­dle that allows him to cor­rect the improp­er punc­tu­a­tion on local busi­ness­es’ awnings and out-of-reach sig­nage?

The so-called “gram­mar vig­i­lante,” above, became an Inter­net sen­sa­tion after a BBC reporter trailed him on one of his night­ly rounds, watch­ing him apply adhe­sive-backed apos­tro­phes where need­ed and erad­i­cate incor­rect­ly placed ones with blank, col­or-matched stick­ers.

While the man­ag­er of Cam­bridge Motors (for­mer­ly known as Cam­bridge Motor’s) hailed the unknown cit­i­zen who mus­cled his splin­tery wood­en sign into com­pli­ance with the King’s Eng­lish, else­where, the back­lash has been bru­tal and swift.

The chair­man of the Queen’s Eng­lish Soci­ety shares the anony­mous crusader’s pain, but frowns on his uncred­it­ed exe­cu­tion.

The Tele­graph is one of sev­er­al pub­li­ca­tions to have called him a “pedant.”

And the own­er of Tux & Tails, whose web­site per­sists in describ­ing the busi­ness as a “gen­tle­mans out­fit­ters,” is angry over what he says will be the cost of restor­ing a large vinyl sign, installed less than a year ago. “It looks like bird shit,” he declared to The Bris­tol Post.

On this side of the pond, Erin Bren­ner, an instruc­tor in the Uni­ver­si­ty of Cal­i­for­nia San Diego Extension’s Copy­edit­ing Cer­tifi­cate pro­gram, comes down hard in her Copy­edit­ing blog. In her opin­ion, there’s noth­ing to be gained from pub­licly sham­ing strangers for their punc­tu­a­tion boo boos:

It is not a kindness—it’s abhor­rent behavior…It also gives the world a mis­guid­ed idea about what pro­fes­sion­al edi­tors, who are also pas­sion­ate about lan­guage, do. We don’t go around slap­ping our authors’ wrists in pub­lic and telling them how wrong and stu­pid they are. 

Those with rea­son to fear vig­i­lante jus­tice for their pub­lic punc­tu­a­tion should be advised that the web abounds with apos­tro­phe usage videos, one of which is above.

Watch a longer seg­ment on the Gram­mar Vig­i­lante here.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

“Weird Al” Yankovic Releas­es “Word Crimes,” a Gram­mar Nerd Par­o­dy of “Blurred Lines”

Cor­mac McCarthy’s Three Punc­tu­a­tion Rules, and How They All Go Back to James Joyce

Steven Pinker Iden­ti­fies 10 Break­able Gram­mat­i­cal Rules: “Who” Vs. “Whom,” Dan­gling Mod­i­fiers & More

Ayun Hal­l­i­day is an author, illus­tra­tor, the­ater mak­er and Chief Pri­ma­tol­o­gist of the East Vil­lage Inky zine.  Fol­low her @AyunHalliday.

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Steve Martin Teaches His First Online Course on Comedy

in Comedy, Education | April 6th, 2017

FYI: If you sign up for a Mas­ter­Class course by click­ing on the affil­i­ate links in this post, Open Cul­ture will receive a small fee that helps sup­port our oper­a­tion.

Can com­e­dy be taught? The ques­tion has no clear answer, but if it can, Steve Mar­tin would sure­ly occu­py the high­est rank of com­e­dy teach­ers. He could prob­a­bly teach a fair few oth­er crafts as well: besides his achieve­ments as an inno­va­tor in stand-up as well as in oth­er forms of com­e­dy — famous­ly appear­ing on Sat­ur­day Night Live so many times that even some of his fans mis­take him for a reg­u­lar cast mem­ber — he’s also estab­lished him­self as an actor, as an essay­ist and nov­el­ist, and even as a respect­ed blue­grass ban­jo play­er. Still, despite his impres­sive artis­tic Renais­sance-man cre­den­tials many of us, at the mere men­tion of Steve Mar­t­in’s name, laugh almost reflex­ive­ly.

Hence his place at the front and cen­ter of “Steve Mar­tin Teach­es Com­e­dy,” a new online course from Mas­ter­class, the edu­ca­tion start­up whose fac­ul­ty ros­ter, as we’ve pre­vi­ous­ly fea­tured, also includes the likes of Wern­er Her­zog and Aaron Sorkin. “We’re going to talk about a lot of things,” says Mar­tin in the course’s trail­er above. “We’re going to talk about my spe­cif­ic process, per­form­ing com­e­dy, we’re going to talk about writ­ing.” For a cost of $90, Mas­ter­class pro­vides more than 25 video lessons, a down­load­able work­book with sup­ple­men­tal les­son mate­ri­als, and an oppor­tu­ni­ty to upload your own mate­r­i­al for cri­tiques by the rest of the class as well as maybe — just maybe — by Mar­tin him­self.

Whether or not a mas­ter come­di­an can pass along his knowl­edge as a math or a lan­guage teacher can, any­one who’s paid atten­tion to Mar­t­in’s com­e­dy so far, as well as his reflec­tions on com­e­dy, can sense how much intel­lec­tu­al ener­gy he’s put into fig­ur­ing it all out, even at its extremes of absur­di­ty, for him­self. Stu­dents unwill­ing to fol­low suit need not apply, nor those wor­ried about land­ing agents and get­ting head­shots, for the esteemed instruc­tor makes it clear up front that he grap­ples only with the most impor­tant ques­tion in com­e­dy, as in life: “How do I be good?” You can sign up here. Or you can pur­chase an All-Access Annu­al Pass for every course in the Mas­ter­Class cat­a­log.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Watch Steve Mar­tin Make His First TV Appear­ance: The Smoth­ers Broth­ers Com­e­dy Hour (1968)

Steve Mar­tin & Robin Williams Riff on Math, Physics, Ein­stein & Picas­so in a Heady Com­e­dy Rou­tine (2002)

Steve Mar­tin on the Leg­endary Blue­grass Musi­cian Earl Scrug­gs

Steve Mar­tin Writes a Hymn for Hymn-Less Athe­ists

Steve Mar­tin, “Home Crafts Expert,” Explains the Art of Paper Wadding, Endors­es Bob Ker­rey

Steve Mar­tin Releas­es Blue­grass Album/Animated Video

Based in Seoul, Col­in Mar­shall writes and broad­casts on cities and cul­ture. He’s at work on a book about Los Ange­les, A Los Ange­les Primer, the video series The City in Cin­e­ma, the crowd­fund­ed jour­nal­ism project Where Is the City of the Future?, and the Los Ange­les Review of Books’ Korea Blog. Fol­low him on Twit­ter at @colinmarshall or on Face­book.

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Creating Saturday Night Live: Behind-the Scenes Videos Reveal How the Iconic Comedy Show Gets Made

in Comedy, Television | April 4th, 2017

I’ve yet to meet any­one who doesn’t have some gripe about the state of SNL, very often root­ed in nos­tal­gia for a sim­pler, fun­nier Gold­en Age. It’s hard not to asso­ciate icon­ic TV shows with lost youth, even shows that have moved on when some of the rest of us haven’t.

The live sketch com­e­dy show, now two years into its fourth decade, has done its best to keep pace with chang­ing times and tastes. While my own fan­dom has waxed and waned, one thing has remained a con­stant: my con­sid­er­able appre­ci­a­tion for the tal­ent and sheer mox­ie required to stage orig­i­nal live com­e­dy on nation­al tele­vi­sion, week after week for forty years.

Comics and celebri­ty guests risk the dis­as­ter of dead air when jokes fall flat. Crewmem­bers rig up con­vinc­ing sets only to strike them min­utes lat­er for com­plete­ly dif­fer­ent envi­rons. Make-up artists trans­form Kate McK­in­non from the car­toon­ish Jeff Ses­sions to the bald, jow­ly “Shud the Mer­maid” in-between sketch­es, a process that seems to unfold in sec­onds in the sped-up behind-the-scenes video above.

Sure, every­thing on the show is script­ed and chore­o­graphed, and the actors read from cue cards. But as the pop­u­lar phe­nom­e­non of “corps­ing”—break­ing char­ac­ter by break­ing into laughter—shows us, any­thing can go wrong live with the best-laid plans of writ­ers and direc­tors. The quick-change tran­si­tion between the cold open and the open­ing mono­logue, which both hap­pen on the “home base stage” of stu­dio 8H, as you can see at the top; the rock-sol­id segues from the live band, below…. The SNL machine depends on every one of its many mov­ing parts to func­tion.

And if—or inevitably when—one of those parts mal­func­tions, well the show goes on… and on and on and on…. How many sea­sons does SNL have left in it? Anoth­er forty? A pos­si­bly infi­nite num­ber? Giv­en how well its teams of cre­atives and crew have mas­tered the art of live tele­vised sketch comedy—not all of it to everyone’s taste, to be sure—it’s pos­si­ble that Sat­ur­day Night Live will out­live even the phe­nom­e­non of tele­vi­sion, trans­plant­i­ng itself some­where in our brains in the far future, where we’ll lean back, close our eyes, and hear the sax­o­phones and that famil­iar, rous­ing announce­ment, “Live, from New York….”

See the show’s make­up depart­ment head and hair design­er walk us through their process below, and watch four more behind-the-scenes shorts at the “Cre­at­ing Sat­ur­day Night Live” playlist on Youtube.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Watch Dave Chappelle’s Sat­ur­day Night Live Mono­logue: “We’ve Elect­ed an Inter­net Troll as Our Pres­i­dent”

Sat­ur­day Night Live: Putin Mocks Trump’s Poor­ly Attend­ed Inau­gu­ra­tion 

When William S. Bur­roughs Appeared on Sat­ur­day Night Live: His First TV Appear­ance (1981)

Josh Jones is a writer and musi­cian based in Durham, NC. Fol­low him at @jdmagness

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Stephen Hawking Auditions Celebrities to Provide His New Voice: Lin-Manuel Miranda, Liam Neeson, Anna Kendrick & Michael Caine

in Comedy | March 29th, 2017

Stephen Hawk­ing’s com­put­er-syn­the­sized voice is dis­tinc­tive. You know it when you hear it. But, after so many years, it’s time for a change. That’s the premise of this short com­ic bit, cre­at­ed for Com­ic Relief’s Red Nose Day. Above, watch A‑list celebrities–everyone from Lin-Manuel Miran­da and Liam Nee­son, to Anna Kendrick and Bill Gates–audition to become the new voice of Prof. Hawk­ing. You can see how it plays out.

Red Nose Day (just held on March 24th this year) is a fundrais­er to help strug­gling peo­ple in coun­tries around the world. You can donate to the cause here.

If you would like to sign up for Open Culture’s free email newslet­ter, please find it here. Or fol­low our posts on Threads, Face­book, BlueSky or Mastodon.

If you would like to sup­port the mis­sion of Open Cul­ture, con­sid­er mak­ing a dona­tion to our site. It’s hard to rely 100% on ads, and your con­tri­bu­tions will help us con­tin­ue pro­vid­ing the best free cul­tur­al and edu­ca­tion­al mate­ri­als to learn­ers every­where. You can con­tribute through Pay­Pal, Patre­on, and Ven­mo (@openculture). Thanks!

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Down­load the Soft­ware That Pro­vides Stephen Hawking’s Voice

Before Siri & Alexa: Hear the First Attempt to Use a Syn­the­siz­er to Recre­ate the Human Voice (1939)

Mon­ty Python’s “Argu­ment Clin­ic” Sketch Reen­act­ed by Two Vin­tage Voice Syn­the­siz­ers (One Is Stephen Hawking’s Voice)

Stephen Hawking’s Lec­tures on Black Holes Now Ful­ly Ani­mat­ed with Chalk­board Illus­tra­tions

Free Online Physics Cours­es

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How Animated Cartoons Are Made: A Vintage Primer Filmed Way Back in 1919

in Animation, Comedy, Technology | February 3rd, 2017

Many tech­niques shown in Bray Stu­dios’ 1919 short How Ani­mat­ed Car­toons are Made, above, were ren­dered obso­lete by dig­i­tal advance­ments, but its 21-year-old star, ani­ma­tor Wal­lace Carl­son, seems as if he would fit right in at Cal Arts or Pratt, Class of 2017.

Like many of today’s work­ing ani­ma­tors, the indus­try pio­neer got start­ed ear­ly, get­ting atten­tion (and a dis­tri­b­u­tion deal!) for work made as a young teen.

His com­ic sen­si­bil­i­ties also sug­gest that young Carl­son would’ve found a place among the 21st-century’s ani­ma­tion greats (and soon-to-be-greats).

It doesn’t hurt that he’s cute, in an indie Williams­burg Dandy sort of way.

The vin­tage feel of his lit­tle instruc­tion­al film is pret­ty hip these days. It could be the work of a very par­tic­u­lar kind of mil­len­ni­al, famil­iar to fans of Girls, Search Par­ty, or oth­er shows whose char­ac­ters spend a lot of time in cafes, mak­ing art that will find its great­est audi­ence on the inter­net.

You know, down­load some silent clips from the Prelinger Archives, browse the Free Music Archive for a suit­ably jan­g­ly old time tune, and put it all togeth­er in iMovie, mess­ing around with title fonts until you achieve the desired effect. That’s what Carl­son might have been doing, had he been born a hun­dred years lat­er.

Some of his (silent) obser­va­tions about his craft still ring true.

Unless you’re work­ing on your own thing, it’s a good idea to get the boss’ bless­ing on your script before embark­ing on the painstak­ing ani­ma­tion process.

And char­ac­ter eye­brow move­ments remain an excel­lent sto­ry­telling device.

Ani­ma­tors whose tal­ents are more visu­al than ver­bal could take a les­son from Carlson’s kicky peri­od dia­logue—“Gee I just bust­ed a win­dow! Hope I don’t get pinched.”—though I’d advise against turn­ing a character’s dis­abil­i­ty into a punch­line.

While today’s young ani­ma­tors have lit­tle to no expe­ri­ence with film pro­cess­ing, Carlson’s exhaus­tion after pump­ing out draw­ing after draw­ing may strike a chord. The dev­il is still in the details for any­one seek­ing to pro­duce work of a high­er qual­i­ty than that which can be achieved with pur­chase of an app.

It’s also pret­ty cool to see Carl­son pre­fig­ur­ing white board ani­ma­tion 56 years before the inven­tion of dry erase mark­ers, as he demon­strates how to set a scene using his Lit­tle Ras­cals-esque char­ac­ters Mamie and Dreamy Dud.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Ger­tie the Dinosaur: The Moth­er of all Car­toon Char­ac­ters (1914)

Ear­ly Japan­ese Ani­ma­tions: The Ori­gins of Ani­me (1917–1931)

Win­sor McCay Ani­mates the Sink­ing of the Lusi­ta­nia in a Beau­ti­ful Pro­pa­gan­da Film (1918)

Ayun Hal­l­i­day is an author, illus­tra­tor, the­ater mak­er and Chief Pri­ma­tol­o­gist of the East Vil­lage Inky zine.  She used one of the allud­ed-to archives to cre­ate the trail­er for her play, Zam­boni Godot, open­ing in New York City next month. Fol­low her @AyunHalliday.

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Deconstructing How Louis CK Writes a Joke

in Comedy, Life | January 20th, 2017

Those who sub­scribe to the notion that decon­struct­ing a joke ruins it may con­sid­er mak­ing an excep­tion for the Nerd­writer (aka Evan Puschak).

His care­ful pars­ing of Louis CK’s Monop­oly joke, above, takes rhythm, word choice, and the impor­tance of a clear­ly stat­ed premise into account.

Deliv­er­ing the 207-word joke at the Bea­con The­ater, CK is char­ac­ter­is­ti­cal­ly non­cha­lant, but Puschak argues that there’s noth­ing unre­hearsed about his per­for­mance.

Take the way he ramps up a sce­nario that will be famil­iar to any parent—the six-year-old who is emo­tion­al­ly unequipped to han­dle los­ing at games. CK gets at an even deep­er truth about the howl­ing injus­tice of being six, by say­ing that his younger daugh­ter is “not emo­tion­al­ly devel­oped enough to han­dle her inevitable loss in every game of Monop­oly.”

Oh, the human­i­ty.

Puschak also sin­gles out CK’s act­ing abil­i­ty. The way he speaks to his daugh­ter, plac­ing her in the first row of the audi­ence, sharp­ens the com­e­dy by help­ing the audi­ence to ful­ly visu­al­ize the sce­nario he’s set up:

I play Monop­oly with my kids, that’s real­ly fun. My nine year old, she can total­ly do Monop­oly. The six year old total­ly gets how the game works but she’s not emo­tion­al­ly devel­oped enough to han­dle her inevitable loss in every game of Monop­oly because a monop­oly loss is dark. It’s heavy. It’s not like when you lose at Can­dy­land ‘Oh you got stuck in the fudgy-thing, baby! Oh well you’re in the gum­my twirly‑o’s! You didn’t get to win!’ But when she los­es at Monop­oly, I got­ta look at her lit­tle face and go ‘Ok, so here’s what’s gonna hap­pen now, ok? All your prop­er­ty, every­thing you have, all your rail­roads and hous­es, and all your money…that’s mine now. Got­ta give it all to me. Give it to me, that’s right. And no no, you can’t play any­more because, you see, even though you’re giv­ing me all of that, it doesn’t even touch how you owe me. Doesn’t even touch it, baby. You’re going down hard, it’s real­ly bad. All you’ve been work­ing for all day, I’m gonna take it now and I’m gonna use it to destroy your sis­ter. I mean I’m gonna ruin her! It is just may­hem on this board for her now.

You can view the Nerdwriter’s oth­er videos essays on his web­site or sub­scribe to his YouTube channel where a new video is pub­lished every Wednes­day.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

How the Great George Car­lin Showed Louis CK the Way to Suc­cess (NSFW)

20-Year-Old Louis CK Per­forms Stand Up (1987)

Louis CK Ridicules Avant-Garde Art on 1990s MTV Show

Ayun Hal­l­i­day is an author, illus­tra­tor, the­ater mak­er and Chief Pri­ma­tol­o­gist of the East Vil­lage Inky zine.  Her play Zam­boni Godot is open­ing in New York City in March 2017. Fol­low her @AyunHalliday.

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Bill Murray & Gilda Radner Deliver the Laughs in Two 1970s Skits for National Lampoon

in Comedy, Music, Radio, Television | December 23rd, 2016

Bill Mur­ray is Amer­i­ca’s kind­liest, most eccen­tric, best known sec­u­lar elf, spread­ing joy through­out the year, as he treats strangers to impromp­tu birth­day ser­e­nades, poet­ry read­ings, and bach­e­lor par­ty toasts.

How will younger fans, who’ve nev­er been exposed to the brash Mur­ray of yore, react to his late 70s San­ta, above, for the “Nation­al Lam­poon Radio Hour”? This Grinch is a spir­i­tu­al fore­fa­ther of such depart­ment store bad­dies as Bil­ly Bob Thorn­ton and that guy from A Christ­mas Sto­ry.

For­get about Flexy the Pock­et Mon­key… Murray’s sham-Claus glee­ful­ly denies even the hum­blest of sweet-voiced lit­tle Gil­da Rad­ner’s requests — a Nerf Ball and a Pez dis­penser.

Sat­ur­day Night Live fans of a cer­tain vin­tage may detect more than a hint of Lisa Loopner’s boyfriend Todd De LaMu­ca in Murray’s vocal char­ac­ter­i­za­tion. Instead of Noo­gies, he sends Rad­ner gig­gling through “the trap door.”

Man, these two had chem­istry!

They revis­it­ed the sce­nario in a hol­i­day sketch for Sat­ur­day Night Live’s 3rd sea­son, with San­ta down­grad­ed from “evil” to “drunk­en.”

Murray’s “Kung Fu Christ­mas” for the Nation­al Lam­poon Radio Hour’s 1974 Christ­mas show, above, makes a smooth vin­tage chas­er.

In addi­tion to Rad­ner, col­lab­o­ra­tors here include Paul Shaf­fer, Christo­pher Guest, and Bil­l’s broth­er Bri­an Doyle-Mur­ray, a lily white line up unthink­able in 2016.

The lyrics and silky vocal stylings con­jure visions of a dis­co-grit­ty yule­tide New York, where “every race has a smile on its face.”

This time Rad­ner gets to do the reject­ing, in an extend­ed spo­ken word inter­lude that finds Christo­pher Guest show­er­ing her with offers rang­ing from a house in the South of France to a glass-bot­tomed boat. (“Didn’t you like that Palomi­no horse I bought you last year?”)

Mur­ray who con­tin­ued to explore his musi­cal urges with his SNL char­ac­ter, Nick the Lounge Singer, was replaced by David Hur­don when “Kung Fu Christ­mas” was record­ed for 1975’s Good-bye Pop album.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Watch Bill Mur­ray, the Strug­gling New SNL Cast Mem­ber, Apol­o­gize for Not Being Fun­ny (1977)

Stream 22 Hours of Funky, Rock­ing & Swing­ing Christ­mas Albums: From James Brown and John­ny Cash to Christo­pher Lee & The Ven­tures

Stan Lee Reads “The Night Before Christ­mas,” Telling the Tale of San­ta Claus, the Great­est of Super Heroes

Bill Mur­ray Reads Great Poet­ry by Bil­ly Collins, Cole Porter, and Sarah Man­gu­so

Ayun Hal­l­i­day is an author, illus­tra­tor, the­ater mak­er and Chief Pri­ma­tol­o­gist of the East Vil­lage Inky zine.  Her play Zam­boni Godot is open­ing in New York City in March 2017. Fol­low her @AyunHalliday.

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