History Music / SpikeJones

Lindley Armstrong "Spike" Jones (1911-1965) was a legendary bandleader in the [[TheThirties thirties]], [[TheForties forties]], and [[TheFifties fifties]], and one of the first innovators of novelty music in popular culture - not, by the way, the more recent director. Spike was a master of musical comedy - not in terms of the film genre, where one gets a comedy that happens to feature singing, but in comedy created through music. Like Music/WeirdAlYankovic, Spike was a parodist, and, again, like Weird Al, having your song mocked by Spike was viewed as a necessity before you could really consider yourself to have made it to musical stardom ... although their approaches were wildly different. Weird Al plays the music so straight that if you're not listening closely, you might not notice that it's a parody; whereas Spike wouldn't change the lyrics, but ''would'' take the music out back and mug it. His 1944 hit cover of "Cocktails for Two", originally a nice, sweet song about how Prohibition was over and people could have alcohol on dates again, featured gunshots, gargling, slide whistles, and enough violence done to the musical instruments that he may have violated the Geneva Convention.

* PerspectiveFlip: Often played for laughs. A very BlackComedy example is "My Old Flame," which presents the song as sung by a NoCelebritiesWereHarmed version of PeterLorre as a psychotic SerialKiller who can't remember [[ReminiscingAboutYourVictims which one of his victims the song is about]].

* SpokenWordInMusic

In the modern day, he is perhaps best known for performing ''[[Disney/DerFuehrersFace Der Fuehrer's Face]]'' in the Disney WartimeCartoon of the same name, though the song was originally written by Oliver Wallace.

* AdolfHitlarious: "Not to love der Fuehrer is a great disgrace / So ve heil! (''raspberry'') heil! (''raspberry'') / Right in Disney/DerFuehrersFace."

* RockMeAmadeus: A collection of parodies of ClassicalMusic (anticipating PDQBach by quite a while) appears in the album, "Spike Jones is Murdering the Classics."

* TheAllegedSteed: Beetle Bomb in "William Tell Overture"

* ObnoxiousInLaws: "William Tell Overture" includes a joke about a racehorse named Mother-in-Law.

Another famous routine is "William Tell Overture", featuring a horse race commentary stacked with jokes about the horses' names and ending in a surprise win for TheAllegedSteed Feetlebaum.

** In "The Funnies" DickTracy is tortured by listening to a Spike Jones record.

Lindley Armstrong "Spike" Jones (1911-1965) was a legendary bandleader in the [[TheThirties thirties]], [[TheForties forties]], and [[TheFifties fifties]], and one of the first innovators of novelty music in popular culture - not, by the way, the more recent director. Spike was a master of musical comedy - not in terms of the film genre, where one gets a comedy that happens to feature singing, but in comedy created through music. Like Music/WeirdAlYankovic, Spike was a parodist, and, again, like Weird Al, having your song mocked by Spike was viewed as a necessity before you could really consider yourself to have made it to musical stardom ... although their approaches were wildly different. Weird Al plays the music so straight that if you're not listening closely, you might not notice that it's a parody, whereas Spike would take the music out back and mug it. His 1944 hit cover of "Cocktails for Two", originally a nice, sweet song about how Prohibition was over and people could have alcohol on dates again, featured gunshots, gargling, slide whistles, and enough violence done to the musical instruments that he may have violated the Geneva Convention.

Technically, most of his music isn't so much ''parody'' as it is ''travesty'' (in the technical definition of the word, without the modern connotation of meanness or butchery). He would play the tune with the correct notes and the original lyrics, but in such an out-of-left-field musical style that the music itself was the joke, much like Weird Al's polkas. Parody, by contrast, involves changing the lyrics of an exising song, which is what Weird Al is most famous for. Spike Jones engaged in some parody, but it was in his travesties where his style really soared.

His band, the City Slickers, were a corporate example of HollywoodToneDeaf. They were all top-notch players -- you ''had'' to be to pull off the scripted cacophony of his scores, mastering the split-second timing and making the proceedings funny rather than totally anarchic. Their musicianship is evident on those rare occasions when they played a passage or (even rarer) an entire number "straight."

* TheAllegedSteed: Feetlebaum in "William Tell Overture"
* AndStarring:

* HurricaneOfPuns: The race commentary in "William Tell Overture".
-->''It's Girdle in the stretch, Locomotive is on the rail; Apartment House is second with plenty of room, and it's Cabbage by a head!''

* AtTheOperaTonight: The song "Pal-Yat-Chee" is a summary of the plot of the opera ''{{Pagliacci}}'' told from the perspective of a country-and-western fan trapped in the theatre.

* LyricalDissonance: The lyrics of the original song are usually sang seriously with the sound effects and extra added jokes as contrast.

* BetterThanItSounds: Comedy music doesn't really give Spike much respect as a genre. The instrumentations and comedic timing are very difficult to pull off and ask for a high level of concentration and showmanship.

** On "Clink, Clink, Another Drink" MelBlance is guest vocalist.

In the modern day, he is perhaps best known for performing ''Der Fuehrer's Face'' in the Disney WartimeCartoon of the same name, though the song was originally written by Oliver Wallace.

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God only knows what tropes he used, though - Michael Bay films are slow and coherent in comparison to what Spike pulled off.
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Lindley Armstrong "Spike" Jones (1911-1965) was a legendary bandleader in the thirties, forties, and fifties, and one of the first innovators of novelty music in popular culture - not, by the way, the more recent director. Spike was a master of musical comedy - not in terms of the film genre, where one gets a comedy that happens to feature singing, but in comedy created through music. Like Music/WeirdAlYankovic, Spike was a parodist, and, again, like Weird Al, having your song mocked by Spike was viewed as a necessity before you could really consider yourself to have made it to musical stardom ... although their approaches were wildly different. Weird Al plays the music so straight that if you're not listening closely, you might not notice that it's a parody, whereas Spike would take the music out back and mug it. His 1944 hit cover of "Cocktails for Two", originally a nice, sweet song about how Prohibition was over and people could have alcohol on dates again, featured gunshots, gargling, slide whistles, and enough violence done to the musical instruments that he may have violated the Geneva Convention.

Spike Jones was a legendary bandleader in the thirties, forties, and fifties, and one of the first innovators of novelty music in popular culture - not, by the way, the more recent director. Spike was a master of musical comedy - not in terms of the film genre, where one gets a comedy that happens to feature singing, but in comedy created through music. Like Music/WeirdAlYankovic, Spike was a parodist, and, again, like Weird Al, having your song mocked by Spike was viewed as a necessity before you could really consider yourself to have made it to musical stardom ... although their approaches were wildly different. Weird Al plays the music so straight that if you're not listening closely, you might not notice that it's a parody, whereas Spike would take the music out back and mug it. His 1944 hit cover of "Cocktails for Two", originally a nice, sweet song about how Prohibition was over and people could have alcohol on dates again, featured gunshots, gargling, slide whistles, and enough violence done to the musical instruments that he may have violated the Geneva Convention.