Dickie Goodman (recognized by Billboard Magazine as the #1 Novelty Artist of All Time) is considered one of the earliest proponents of sampling in music, and was the first performer to use fragments of other people’s hits to build his own songs.
In 1956 Goodman came up with the idea of using lines from current hits of the day to comment on fads, such as UFO sightings. His first song, “The Flying Saucer,” was co-written with partner Bill Buchanan, and featured a description of an invasion of earth from a Martian space ship. Goodman (as “John Cameron Cameron,” parodying longtime broadcast announcer John Cameron Swayze) asked questions of pedestrians, scientists, and even the Martian himself. Their responses were “snipped” from lyrics of popular songs of the day, including tracks from Fats Domino, Elvis Presley and Little Richard, and provided the sarcastic “answers” to his setup questions.
Alan Freed, at New York’s WINS radio, started playing the song nightly and the song became an instant hit. Although the record was an immediate hit in New York, it took a couple of weeks for the rest of the country to catch on. The NBC and ABC radio networks initially banned the song, because they didn’t want any listeners misunderstanding the gag record as an actual announcement of an invasion. Other parts of the country couldn’t get their hands on the record fast enough. In some cities, “The Flying Saucer” actually beat out Elvis’ “Don’t Be Cruel/Hound Dog” for a few weeks in sales and local airplay.
Roulette Records signed the duo and they followed up with a series of “break-in” records: “Flying Saucer the 2nd,” “Flying Saucer the 3rd,” and even the Western parody “Flying Saucers Go West.” Goodman later recorded other break-in records, usually based around a political theme, or interviewing Batman or Neil Armstrong. Less than one year after their biggest hit, Buchanan and Goodman went their separate ways.
Some other novelty break-in hits by Dickie Goodman, with and without Bill Buchanan, include (among many others) “Buchanan & Goodman on Trial,” “The Creature (From a Science Fiction Movie),” “The Touchables,” Batman and His Grandmother,” “Watergrate,” and “Mr. Jaws.”
As their records became popular Top 40 radio hits, they were eventually sued by 17 different record labels for copyright infringement. The suits were all dismissed with the ruling that “break-in” records were parodies that did not infringe on the sales of the works being parodied. Goodman released many novelty records from 1956 to 1988, and also worked as a jokewriter for guests on The Ed Sullivan Show.
Buchanan wrote a few pop songs here and there, including co-writing the Bobby Vee hit “Please Don’t Ask About Barbara.” By 1964, he made one final “break-in” record, “The Invasion,” in which the Beatles were the invaders of America. In 1965, Buchanan retired from the music business and started a jewelry business. On August 1, 1996, Bill Buchanan died of cancer.
On November 6, 1989, with his wife gone and his life savings gambled away, Dickie Goodman died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound.
This is a Buchanan and Goodman sound collage from 1957, in which Santa meets up with a UFO, called “Santa and the Satellite.” Although it is credited to Buchanan & Goodman, it was actually recorded after the duo broke up, and the voice of the reporter is provided by Paul Sherman. The recording reached #32 on the Billboard charts in December 1957. Though the jokes fall flat, it’s interesting to hear what passed for humor back in the days when Mad magazine was considered cutting edge.
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Almost ten years ago, Dickie Goodman’s son Jon put together the first CD tribute to his father entitled Greatest Fables. The only problem was Jon couldn’t or wouldn’t get clearances from many of the songs Dickie used for his various parodies over the years.
Instead, a soundalike band was used to replicate two or three second clips of famous songs, totally destroying not just the original mood of the parodies but the compact disc as a whole.
The soundalike band in this song was used for “Keep A-Knockin’”, “Little Bitty Pretty One”, and “Wake Up Little Susie”. It’s quite jarring to hear the “voice” of Little Richard about two octaves too low!
This is the worst song yet!