Lunch Break: Freddy Martin, “Pico and Sepulveda”

Pico and Sepulveda 2008

Pico and Sepulveda 2008

One of the delights of living in Los Angeles in the 1970s was the Dr. Demento radio show on Sunday nights. A collage of perverse novelties and exercises in bad or misbegotten taste, reveling in whatever drives men and women to create awful yet catchy music.

One staple of the show was a tune called Pico and Sepulveda, which starts out like Cab Calloway and ends up like Devo. As fine as the tune is, the video is just as fine.

5 thoughts on “Lunch Break: Freddy Martin, “Pico and Sepulveda”

  1. So, the video of Pico and Sepulveda was an excerpt from a movie called Forbidden Zone, which was directed by Richard Elfman in 1980. He’s the brother of former Oingo Boingo and present film composer, Danny Elfman, who scored the movie (his first). The film is an adaptation of a comedy revue called the Mystic Knights of the Oingo Boingo. The movie was released in black and white and was criticized for being racist, anti semitic and sexist, as this clip demonstrates, though obviously that stuff is satirical and offensive, not cluelessly or maliciously offensive.

    This tune is a take off from Cab Calloway.

    http://youtu.be/dgGQ4kRBPtU

  2. Hmm. I thought this was kind of interesting till you posted this backstory stuff, Peter. Now I really like it, especially the part about offending people.

    Don’t forget, Danny Elfman also wrote the Simpsons theme.

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