LY

I find the best stuff on Mark Evanier's blog.

When I was 13, Dr. Demento started broadcasting on New York radio. He didn't last more than a year, but his show opened a new world of comedy to me. I heard song parodies from guys in the midwest with 4-tracks. I listened to George Carlin even though my parents warned me not to. I loved Monty Python for a full year before I ever saw them.

I also fell in love with Tom Lehrer. He's fairly obscure but the novelty songs he wrote in the fities and sixties were smart, elegant and had punches in unexpected places. I got "An Evening With Tom Lehrer" for my thirteenth birthday and played the living hell out of it. When a complete box set was released on cd six years ago, I got that too.

It was thent I realized I'd been listening to Tom Lehrer all my life. He wrote a few songs for "The Electric Company" and they were the best of that series. The video below is the best of those and it's Renee's favorite. The song is on the box set but I hadn't seen the animation in 25 years.