August 22

Why write about Ron Dante on his birthday? Because he sang the biggest song of 1969, but nobody knew his name.
He left his behind birth name, Carmine Granito, when he joined his first band in the early 60's. Eventually, he was working with producer Don Kirschner, songwriting and singing demos.
In 1965, he was the lead singer of a comedy band, The Detergents: they hit the Top 10 with the parody "Leader of the Laundromat" (they got hit with a lawsuit, too; that was settled out of court.) They hit the Hot 100 one more time with "Double-0 Seven" (not a parody, just a comedy song about dating a James Bond fan) before they called it a day:


"Leader of the Laundromat" was written by the team of Paul Vance and Lee Pockriss, who wrote some successful original hits ("Itsy Bitsy Teeny Weeny Yellow Polka Dot Bikini", "Catch a Falling Star".) They recruited Dante to sing vocals for a demo(all the vocals: lead, and all harmonies.) The agreement was, if the song was a hit, Dante would record an entire album for them; the song became a Top 10 hit by the end of 1969.

After the success of "Tracy", Dante recorded all the songs for The Cuff-Links' first album in two days (at the boards, up-and-coming music producer Rupert Holmes...)

The reason for all the rush was that one of Dante's singing sessions was becoming the biggest hit of 1969. Don Kirschner, having just washed his hands of The Monkees, was hired to create music for a TV series based on the comic book character Archie Andrews; Kirschner hired Dante to sing vocals for their songs (and "Leader of the Pack" composer Jeff Barry as lead songwriter; small world...) "Sugar Sugar" was the Archies' monster hit, a global sensation that set the bar for cartoon rock for decades.
The Archies would hit the Top 40 four times; here's their other million-selling single, "Jingle Jangle", taken from the Ed Sullivan archives:

(Trivia: which member of the Archies is singing lead on "Jingle Jangle"? Betty? Veronica? It's Ron Dante, falsetto!)

So, Dante recorded hit songs for the Archies and the Cuff-Links in 1969, without having to tour for either of them. Instead, Dante accepted a solo recording contract with Don Kirschner, which excluded any outside work (except, of course, Don Kirschner projects...)

"Let Me Bring You Up", the lead-up single from his 1970 solo album, was written by the "Sugar Sugar" songwriters. Despite this, they couldn't strike lightning twice. By 1972, Dante was the lead singer in another cartoon band...

It wasn't the end of his music career; he made it through the 70's producing some of Barry Manilow's greatest hits ('Copacabana', 'Mandy'), before parlaying into Broadway production (Ain't Misbehavin, Children of a Lesser God). Today, he raises dalmations and tours for the festival crowd; he resumed his solo career in 1999, and released his most recent in 2010.

June 25

If you've read the entries earlier this week, you might have noticed the pattern: everyone I wrote about was a birthday girl. I was wondering if I hadn't featured enough females in the blog (considering the planet's about 50/50 gender-wise, why wouldn't a random sampling of undercelebrated celebrities be the same? Discuss...) so I intentionally searched for females to write about. I made it to 6 in a row; why did I stop?
Because I can't let by the birthday of Peyo, Belgian cartoonist and the father of the Smurfs. Smurfs were a major toy phenomenon in the decade of major toy phenomenons, the 80's. But before that, they were a spin-off from a comic strip that Peyo created after World War II, called Johan et Pirlouit (in the 80's cartoon, that's Johan and Peewee[or Peewit?]) About ten years into Johan's comic strip adventures, he meets the Smurfs. They were immediately popular, and received their own newspaper strip. The plastic figurines also started in the 50's, and hasn't stopped production since.

The most fascinating aspect about the Smurfs, to me, is how one of the most popular children's shows in the Reagan administration could look so... communist. I mean, what are Smurfs? A bunch of little blue men barely distinguishable from each other, most of them named by their role in the community(Brainy, Jokey, Hefty, Handy, etc.) Replace "smurf" with "comrade", and see how well it fits.
Also consider: Papa Smurf, the leader dressed in Red, with the Karl Marx beard and the French revolution hat.
Also consider: Gargamel, the wanna-be wizard that keeps trying to capture Smurfs so he can melt them into gold. In the Smurf world, he's a greedy giant, a Capitalist. Think that's a stretch? The producers actually changed his motivation in the last two seasons: apparently, it was more acceptable for the kids to think that he wanted to eat them! There's even umblings that Gargamel's design is consistent with anti-Semetic caricatures(bald, big nose, greedy), which would make the Smurfs Stalinists, I guess...
Anyway, they're about to experience a resurgence; they're a tentpole movie for the 2011 summer season, and that song will be in my head for another decade. But then, I can always turn to that Unicef ad they did a few years ago, to bring attention to the inscription of children in partisan fighting throughout several African nations.


I'm sorry; I can't end this article on such a low; here's a full episode of the Smurfs, which you can find at thewb.com:

T

May 21

Today's Laurence Tureaud's birthday, but you can call him Mr T. He is the closest thing we have to a living American myth, but I can share some historical tidbits with you: He created the Mr T persona while working as a bouncer. While working the door at some club, he would wear the gold chains, rings and other jewelry that got left behind after some fight in the establishment, so whoever lost their items could get them back without re-entering the club. He wears the Mohawk in the style of a Mandinka warrior, an ethnic group of the African continent; he discovered the hairstyle while reading National Geographic.

His combination of radiating strength and public saavy made him a natural as a celebrity bodyguard, in every sense of the phrase. He parlayed that into an acting career, then into cartoons and pro wrestling, then merchandising. Matter of fact, I started a cereal box collection a few years ago, just to have an excuse to buy a box of Mr T cereal again.

Never mind that the box was empty. Never mind that the cereal tasted like tart packing material, even back in the day. Ebay had that box, and I went for it.
A new generation's discovering Mr T: besides his current status as a pitchman and reality TV star, he's been doing impressive work in cartoons like The Proud Family and Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs. In 2010, he has a CGI "Mr T" movie in development, and he's got his own video game forthcoming, as well. That's not so surprising, considering what he did to World of Warcraft.

That's enough jibba jabba for today. Stay in school!

January 27

Today's the birthday of Peter Laird, one of the two daddies of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. He's the current curator of the brand (Eastman sold off his share at least a decade ago), and that's his full time job apparently; he doesn't even have other comics drawn besides.
I know, the only reason I'm posting this is so I can run a clip of the catchiest theme song of all time:

Yes, you heard right. This is the European version; apparently, there's no such thing as a good 'ninja' in Europe...

decenber 19

Happy Birthday to Jill Talley, who's a lot more than Mrs Spongebob Squarepants. Honestly, it's hard not to talk about Tom Kenny when you talk about Jill Talley; 2010 will be their fifteenth wedding anniversary. Since they were castmates on the 1992 Fox sketch comedy show The Edge (the more I find out about this show, the more I want to see a DVD release,) it seems like they've been inseperable. It helps that they're both hilarious and talented. They were utility players through the entire run of Mr Show; they were the traveling couple in the Smashing Pumpkins' "Tonight Tonight" video; they even appeared together in "Sky High". Oh, and she does the voice of Plankton's computer wife Karen, on Spongebob.
Anyway, on her own, she does voicework for plenty of today's cartoons, including Boondocks, American Dad, Camp Lazlo, WordGirl... Also, she was Gail on Seinfield.

So Happy Birthday to Jill Talley, and thanks for giving me a reason to play Smashing Pumpkins' "Tonight Tonight":

Smashing Pumpkins - Tonight, Tonight
Uploaded by popefucker. - Music videos, artist interviews, concerts and more.

And here she is, on Mr Show, keeping up with the boys: