You know how you watch something on YouTube and that leads you to another video and pretty soon you go down a rabbit hole and hours go by as you discover different nutty things? That was me last night.
And I came upon this. It’s so absurd I had to share it.
There was an afternoon show on ABC in the mid ‘60s called WHERE THE ACTION IS. Dick Clark hosted and basically it was a music show consisting of rock groups of the day lip syncing their songs at the beach. The idea was to capture that whole California Myth (which did exist if you had a car and could get to the beach). I recall seeing Paul Revere & the Raiders wearing their heavy felt Revolutionary War uniforms rocking out at the beach.
To my knowledge, WHERE THE ACTION IS was gone long before 1973. But then I found this music video, which is very reminiscent of WTAI. I don’t know the story behind it. But it’s Vicki Lawrence singing her only big hit, THE NIGHT THE LIGHTS WENT OUT IN GEORGIA at the beach. And it sounds like Dick Clark introducing her.
But here’s what’s so bizarre and made me laugh out loud. Hardly anybody at the beach is paying any attention to her. They’re all running around, throwing the football, tackling each other, kicking sand. She’s just standing in the middle of this scene for no reason whatsoever. And the content of the song is about a murder in the south and an innocent man being hung. So the few people who are in the background dancing to this look like complete idiots.
I love Vicki Lawrence and would someday like to ask her about this. But in the meantime, enjoy today's surreal music video.
She looks like Carol Burnett! That slate at the beginning said this was take 42. 42? Someone named 9Ballr in the comment section on Youtube said "One of the greatest surfing songs ever", lol, good one 9Ballr. Ken's right about the dancing, the girl with the bun in her hair looked like a complete knob. This thing couldn't have "jumped the shark" anymore then if an actual shark had jumped up on the beach and snapped at Viki's torso while she jumped over it. This almost beats the most cringe worthy one, which is Bert Parks singing the Paul McCartney and Wings song Let 'Em In at one of those beauty pageants. Check it out, you will regret it.
ReplyDeleteKen: It was an attempted revival of "Where the Action Is" under the American Bandstand imprint---called "Action '73". There were seven episodes---probably all running in Bandstand's Saturday morning timeslot that summer.
ReplyDelete[url]https://www.imdb.com/title/tt6027080/[/url]
On another subject, I thought you might be interested in this piece from the Guardian, written by a scientist who is studying laughter (not comedy, laughter itself): https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/apr/15/scientist-studying-laughter-funny-comedy
ReplyDeletewg
I remember "Where The Action Is", there was also a show that ran in the Summer Of 67 known as Malibu U, which was hosted by Rick Nelson. That was corny, but I was 10 and loved it. I know one bit showed a bikini and Nelson's goofy sidekick said "that's what I call a student body" It also showed the Doors singing "Light My Fire", amongst other pop artists.
ReplyDeleteThis happened to me a few years ago . . . I was watching some Top X videos (which there are too much of on YouTube), which ended up leading me to Bigfoot videos, which ended up leading me to a series of videos about a strange creature spotted in a park in the Netherlands that was turned into a full-blown investigation, as people were coming forward with information that this creature was actually an escaped (or set free) genetic experiment - this lead me to the channel known as Mike Soze's Mysteries. If you're at all interested in bizarre and unexplained phenomana such as U.F.O.s, cryptozoology, conspiracys, paranormal, etc. I would definitely recommend checking out his channel; he's been trying to start over from scratch this year and could really use some support.
ReplyDeleteMeanwhile, as a struggling small YouTuber who's actually been using YouTube for over eleven years, I've seen so many ways YouTube has been killed for the little guys, the most recent of which has been celebrities now flocking to YouTube for their own use, much like celebrities that started using Kickstarter to fund their projects. If you're interested, I've written about this last week:
http://josephscarbrough.blogspot.com/2019/04/celebritytube.html
Paul Revere & the Raiders hosted a similar show, "It's Happening."
ReplyDelete"And the content of the song is about a murder in the south and an innocent man being hung"
ReplyDeleteIsn't he being electrocuted? Isn't that the reason the lights go out?
"And the content of the song is about a murder in the south and an innocent man being hung"
ReplyDeleteIsn't he being electrocuted? Isn't that why the lights go out?
I remember one time, probably 20 years ago, I saw Paul Revere and the Raiders play at the Date Festival in Indio in the middle of the midway. Same heavy felt outfits, no lip synching though, but the temps were around 100 degrees. Still, they sounded pretty good.
ReplyDeleteI fell down one of those YouTube rabbit holes last night. Ended up watching an episode of "The Betty White Show" from 1977. The writing staff was essentially all your "Cheers" friends. And it was funny!
ReplyDeleteNow if you want to hear a legitimately awesome Bert Parks cover version, check out his rendition of Dylan's "Maggie's Farm" in "The Freshman." Spectacular.
ReplyDeleteIf you want to ask Vicki that, I hope you are friends with her. Word is she can't be bothered with "the little people" (which includes me, if not you or many of your readers).
ReplyDeleteI think the entire early 70s could be described as the "what were they thinking?" era. It was an awkward period for so many reasons, in politics, music, television, sex, drug use, fashion, society as a whole.
ReplyDeleteBut yeah, teenagers on a beach frolicking to such a dark song is really bizarre even for then. Makes you wonder if anyone was really even paying attention.
Oh yes. I remember Where the Action Is.
ReplyDeleteI was in a zero-budget movie titled Malibu Summer some 28 years ago. The movie is mostly about tits on display. Which made its airings on the USA channel many times in the mid-90s pointless, as they cut out all the tits, which were the movie's only reason to exist. This also reduced my role from about 6 minutes of screentime (And I was billed sixth, opening credits) to one minute of screentime, as most of my scenes were played with pretty ladies not wearing tops. (It's out on DVD. It's worthless, but the check did not bounce.)
We shot in January, on location at a beach house in Malibu. The beach scenes all had a bunch of people partying on the sand directly behind the house, while in either direction up and down the beach as far as the eye could see, there was not one one solitary human being, just miles of empty sand. You see, it was about 50 degrees out when we shot it.
I thought Paul Revere and the Raiders had their own similar show? I remember all the Vox gear, especially the keyboard with the black and white keys reversed
ReplyDeleteBrian, the lyrics clearly state "That's the night that they hung an innocent man" and "Well they hung my brother..." Maybe the lights went out during his cremation. Apparently the judicial system moves really fast in Georgia.
ReplyDeleteI'd never heard this song before but it reminds me a lot of It Never Rains in Southern California by Albert Hammond.
ReplyDelete"Isn't he being electrocuted? Isn't that the reason the lights go out?"
ReplyDeleteI think it's metaphorical. It's like the "lights going out across Europe" at the beginning of World War I. Which is why the song isn't that tragic, since it's only one person dying.
@Brian Stanley
ReplyDeleteI take the song to be an extended metaphor about lynching and corrupt law enforcement in the deep south. I don't think it's meant to be literal. Yes, she does say that they "hung" an innocent man, and "the lights went out" refers to the electric chair, but it also references complacency about about social injustice and sexual hypocrisy.
If you listen to the last verse, she drives it home.
I thought it was fantastic, not uncomfortable at all.
ReplyDelete- Signed William Shatner singing Rocket Man
Incongruity between a pop song and what surrounds it is a great tradition of pop music. "Brown Sugar" had an irresistible rock beat and was a #1 hit for the Rolling Stones. But the lyrics are very explicitly about an antebellum Southerner who beats and rapes his slaves.
ReplyDelete@Stephen Marks: That's not the real slate, just a mockup that whoever posted that video on YouTube added. I'm guessing "Take 42" is a reference to The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy.
Nothing says summer like a granny dress. At least Vicki didn't get tackled by the guys roughhousing behind her -- not while the cameras were running.
ReplyDeleteHey Ken-- Sad to hear about Georgia Engel's passing. Did you ever work with her? She was very good on "Mary Tyler Moore" and on "Everybody Loves Raymond."
ReplyDeleteIgnore the first seven seconds of the video. Then there's the trailer for the movie version of The Night The Lights Went Out In Georgia.
ReplyDeletehttps://youtu.be/qCBmcz8zxhE
When Reba McEntire had a hit with her version of the song, she appeared on Vicki! (Lawrence's talk show from the early 1990s) and they did a duet version. The more interesting part, to me, is Vicki's explanation of how she came to record the song (it sounds like she was the last and only choice). Here's the video; that explanation is early on.
ReplyDeletehttps://youtu.be/wMD5nBcPrCk
Bobby Russell, Lawrence's husband at the time (1973), wrote the song. He was also responsible for--brace yourself, Mr. Levine--"Honey," recorded by Bobby Goldsboro.
ReplyDeleteRussell, a Nashville native, died at 52 in 1992 in Nicholasville, Ky., 12 miles south of Lexington, where I live.
Cowboy Surfer
ReplyDeleteMr Shatner would like to apologize for Rocket Man,
but he needs some help (CRANK IT!):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ainyK6fXku0
There's nothing else to do!
I don't know how many followers you actually have here, but when I went to YT and typed in "Bert Parks" here at the end of day PST, the top option was "Let'em In." Damn.
ReplyDeleteI could never figure what was going on in this song- one of the characters was named Andy and there were lines that went "and he". So who did what to whom?
ReplyDeleteThe next year was even better- my Mom went out to a u-pick to get some raspberries- someone had a transistor radio and she came back appalled because the top 40 station played stuff like "You're Having My Baby" and "I Shot the Sheriff".
Odd to see black people dancing to a song about a white Southern sheriff hanging an innocent man.
ReplyDeleteHowdy all... back in ‘78-79 I was in a Paul Revere and the Raiders tribute band...had a blast! Toured opening for Jan and Dean. Yeah, we wore the tri cornered hats...but the jackets were velvet and light! White tights, too! One word: endless chicks. Oh. That’s two words... anyway, we actually sand a song called Where The Action Is. That’s all.
ReplyDeleteThe 1970s comedy troupe The Credibility Gap (featuring THE SIMPSONS' Harry Shearer) spoofed that song with a novelty 45, "The Night the Lights Stayed On in Pittsburgh". Here's a link:
ReplyDeletehttps://soundcloud.com/user1386976/track08-the-night-the-lights