Lizard Music is a children's novel published by Daniel Pinkwater in 1976.
Eleven-year-old Victor's on his own after his parents go on vacation, leaving him with his mostly absent big sister. He's got a love of midnight bad sci-fi movie hour, but one night, instead of the usual mockable serials from the 50s, he sees a blurry shot of... lizards playing music. Joining up with a black hobo who has a hen in his hat, they set off to get to the source of the broadcasts: an invisible island populated by sentient lizards that's somewhere off the coast near Hogboro.
Lizard Music includes the following tropes:
- Aliens Steal Cable: The lizards have learned English from watching human TV broadcasts.
- Anchovies Are Abhorrent: Victor's entire family hates anchovies.
- Cloudcuckoolander:
- Shane Fergussen calls Victor several terms usually associated with royalty when he orders a grape soda, including shouting "A grape soda for a prince of royal blood!" into the street. He's also friends with the Chicken Man and they watch the lizards together.
- The lizards are only shown to have three distinct names note but always know who's being addressed, and invented their own form of television long before humans did that's watched with one's eyes closed. The lizards revere chickens and an egg that's the focus of a prophecy, and have a culture-wide appreciation of Walter Cronkite.
- Cluster Bleep-Bomb: Victor watches a man-in-the-street interview on the late news where one of the interviewees is a woman with no teeth who swears a lot. He observes that although all the swear words are beeped out, you can still see her lips moving.Woman: You're beep right! My beep son's first wife's cousin's boy is a fireman. The way that poor beep has to work – it's a beep shame. Let the beep city beep beep beep.
- Covers Always Lie: One of the covers depicts lizards coming out of Victor's TV, which never happens. The lizards on the cover are also around one or two feet tall, come in orange and green, and wear leather jackets and sunglasses. The lizards are actually five feet tall, look more or less identical to one another, and don't wear clothes save for hats, sashes and medals near the end.
- The Cuckoolander Was Right: The Chicken Man is the only other character (besides the narrator) who knows about the Lizard Music program.
- Everyone Calls Him "Barkeep": The odd man that Victor befriends is known to most people as the Chicken Man, due to the pet hen named Claudia he takes everywhere.
- Hammerspace: One of the lizards named Reynold takes a sheet of paper out of his pocket, despite not wearing any clothes. Another Reynold buys refreshments for himself and Victor later on, but Victor is unable to catch the lizard putting his hand into his pocket or taking the money out.
- I Choose to Stay: In the end, the Chicken Man decides to stay with the lizards. Victor would like to stay - the lizards are a cool bunch, after all, and their way of television is actually really cool- but the Chicken Man points out he's got his parents, sister, and school to come back to while the Chicken Man's just a hobo who annoys other people.
- I Have Many Names: The Chicken Man gives a different alias every time he shows up, which is eventually lampshaded when a statement of his gets attributed to every alias he's given out up until that point. When Victor asks which is his real name, he asks Victor which he likes best. Victor responds, "Charles Swan", and the Chicken Man says to call him Charlie, which Victor does for the rest of the book.
- Impossibly Delicious Food: The lizards have a drink that is described as being similar to really good lemonade, except it's not made with lemons. In Victor's opinion, it's the only drink he's ever had that tastes better than grape soda.
- Jack of All Trades: In addition to putting on shows with Claudia, the Chicken Man is a licensed guide and is seen delivering pizzas and driving a taxi. If his business cards are to be believed, he also has experience with psychiatry and telepathy, explains dreams, finds lost items, sharpens saws, collects old and rare books about poultry, and is an investment counselor and bail bondsman.
- Only One Who Likes Spam: Victor is the only member of his family who likes pizza with anchovies. He doesn't get to have it often because the rest of his family won't let him eat anchovy pizza in the same room as them, and his sister Leslie will freak out and claim she can taste anchovies in her pizza even if he goes elsewhere with his slices. He takes advantage of his family being out of town to order a pizza with double anchovies.
- Parental Abandonment: Victor's parents head off to a resort in Colorado at the beginning of the book and don't return until the last chapter. His older sister Leslie is supposed to watch him, but the day after their parents leave she takes off on a two-week camping trip to Cape Cod with her friends and likewise doesn't return until the end.
- Planet of Steves: The group of lizards who welcome Victor and the Chicken Man to the island all have the same name – Reynold. When Victor asks if all the lizards on the island are named Reynold, Reynold says that would be silly and they do have other names, like Helena and Raymond. Victor subsequently meets one lizard named Helena and three named Raymond (who are siblings), but every other lizard he encounters is named Reynold.
- Plot Allergy: One of the reasons Victor's staying at home the summer the story takes place instead of going to camp with his peers is because he found out he was allergic to most of the plants when he went to camp the previous year.
- Production Foreshadowing: One of the B-movies Victor watches is titled Invasion of the Fat Men, which is about millions of fat men falling from space and eating all of the planet's junk food. This is the same premise as Pinkwater's book Fat Men From Space, which was published a year later.
- Prophecies Are Always Right: Reynold tells Victor that one of the reasons they're so hospitable is that they have an ancient prophecy that one day a visitor to the island will bring about a new era of prosperity. Sure enough, it comes true during Victor's visit thanks to Claudia.
- Punny Names: The lizards have a quiz show where they have to give correct answers about human history, but they all have reptilian puns ranging from Salamander Graham Bell to Newt Rockne.
- Reptiles Are Abhorrent: Discussed. The lizards on the island are completely mellow (thanks to television waves), but the narrator is wary of going to the island at first, because of this trope.
- Shout-Out:
- Many of the Chicken Man's aliases are artists, including Vincent van Gogh and Pieter Brueghel.
- The late-night movies Victor watches include No Celebrities Were Harmed versions of Island of Lost Souls and Invasion of the Body Snatchers.
- Apart from the Lizard Music program, the lizards' TV shows include a quiz show modeled on You Bet Your Life.
- Some of My Best Friends Are X: Alluded to; Victor mentions that kids at his school tend to crowd around the few black students in an effort to prove they aren't prejudiced, ironically making it impossible to actually talk to and get to know them.
- Summer Campy: Victor mentions having gone to a summer camp the previous year. He also mentions not seeing a point to returning after learning he was allergic to all the plants, running into poison ivy, getting stung by bees, and breaking his arm after falling off the roof of a cabin.
- Thought-Aversion Failure: Before showing Victor the House of Memory, which gives form to the thoughts and memories of whoever enters, Reynold advises Victor not to think about snakes. This advice results in a giant white cobra appearing inside. Then Reynold tells Victor to think about a corn muffin, and the snake turns into a corn muffin.
- Trademark Favorite Food: Victor is fond of grape soda; it gets mentioned several times in passing and he buys a grape soda both times he visits Shane Fergussen's candy store. He also favorably compares a drink he has on Diamond Hard to grape soda.
- Traveling Landmass: The lizards' island moves around, and is sometimes closer to shore and sometimes farther out, which is one reason it's so difficult to find.
