Hats Off
It's Butch Patrick's birthday. He's best known for playing Eddie Munster, but I was just thinking about his second act, Lidsville. Back then, before cable was big, shows could afford to have long theme songs, because you weren't going anywhere. But with this one I gotta ask how they had time for the show afterward.
posted by LAGuy @ 12:18 AM
8 Comments:
Oh! I LOVED that show when I was a kid and I never, ever knew until now that that was Eddie Munster. (But I probably had never seen The Munsters when I started watching Lidsville.)
The first 90 seconds of the theme song are about the nightmare this kid is going through. Then, once they introduce Lidsville, out of nowhere it goes from horror show to happy place. It's like a news report on ptomaine poisoning that turns into an ad for McDonald's.
Back in the day when even boys had Farah-hair.
When are you going to post Butch's 1986 non-scannable comeback video- "What Ever Happened to E[h-eh-eh]ddy, the Kid From Mockingbird Place"?
Irene Done: That's why people read Pajama Guy--to learn new things.
New England Guy: It's 1313 Mockingbird Lane. A lot of people go to the Mockingbird Place address and get the wrong gothic mansion.
As to Butch's non-scannable non-comeback video, I don't approve. If you're writing words to a pre-set tune, try to have the same number of syllables as notes.
Besides, The Munsters Theme already had a fine set of lyrics:
When you are walking the street at night,
And behind you there's no-one in view.
But you hear mysterious feet at night,
Then The Munsters are following you!
If you should meet this strange family,
Just forget what some people have said.
The Munsters may shake your hand clammily,
But they're not necessarily dead.
Behind their house you mustn't be afraid
To see a figure digging with a spade,
Perhaps someone didn't quite make the grade
With The Munsters, with The Munsters.
If when you're sleeping you dream a lot,
Ghoulish nightmares parade thru your head.
And then you wake up and scream a lot
Oh, The Munsters are under your bed!
At midnight if creatures should prowl about,
And if vampires and vultures swoop down,
And werewolves and fiends shriek and howl about,
Well, The Munsters are out on the town!
One night I dared peek thru their window screen;
My hair turned white at such a crazy scene!
Because every evening is Halloween,
At The Munsters, at The Munsters!
Lidsville was pre-Charlie's Angels. If anything, Farrah got her look from Butch.
I memorized this song when it was on TV originally, and have never forgotten it. It's probably the best Sid & Marty Krofft show, and certainly the best theme song.
Listing to it again, the music reminds me of Phish. I wonder if they've ever done it in concert?
(I'm not implying that either Phish or the Kroffts ever did drugs. Who would think such a thing?)
Some see Lidsville as a weak imitation of the Kroft's earlier hit, H.R. Pufnstuf. That's for the individual viewer to decide. Same for all the alleged drug references, which the Kroft's strenuously denied.
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