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VIP 25012 (B), November 1964
B-side of Randy, the Newspaper Boy
(Written by Bert Haney)
Hoo boy.
This is a record that attempts to take the wacky Halloween spirit of Bobby “Boris” Pickett and the Crypt Kickers’ Monster Mash (which, incidentally, I could quite happily go the entire rest of my life without ever hearing again), and give it a Christmas twist.
Yeah, you read that right.
It’s a two minute skit which mainly consists of comedian Bert Haney (a different “Ray Oddis” to the “Ray Oddis” featured on the A-side) doing a terrible Dracula accent, playing a monster having a conversation with his young son (played by Haney himself, his voice speeded up on tape) on Christmas Eve.
It’s, um… It’s not a masterpiece, let’s put it that way.
In fact, it’s manifestly awful on just about every level you can think of. The central concept – monster first-grader is lonely and wants a friend for Christmas – is mawkish and oddly out of place in what’s meant to be a jaunty comedy record, and anyway it’s ruined by a throwaway aside in the coda which reveals the child just wants to eat his new friend, thus undoing everything that went before for the sake of a cheap laugh (which it doesn’t even get anyway).
There’s a briefly touching moment between father and son in the middle (Your daddy loves you as you are!), which (as a new father myself) did “get” me, so that I was momentarily tempted to look fondly on this – but its potentially sweet and redeeming message (it’s okay to be different, kids!) is promptly wallpapered over with more weak gags (and again, it’s a sentiment that feels totally out of place in these wacky surroundings anyway).
And, of course, it’s a record featuring a man doing a sped-up comedy Transylvanian voice, which… I mean, come on.
Certainly it’s a surprise to be meeting Bert Haney again; his previous effort with Brice Armstrong, the utterly dismal The Interview (Summit Chanted Meeting), is my own personal pick for the worst Motown 45 you’ll ever find. Although to his great credit, Mr Haney did turn up here on Motown Junkies and show himself to be a good sport about the enthusiastic but fully justified kicking I delivered to that particular record.
The temptation, then, is to go easy on this – it was only meant to be a bit of fun, a piece of fluff aimed at riding the coat-tails of another novelty hit (cut in 1962, its subsequently being shelved for nearly two years, losing any potential impact as a contemporary Monster Mash parody, certainly doesn’t help its cause), and it’s not hurting anyone.
But it’s just so very, very bad, a bad idea turned into a bad song done badly, that I can’t find anything really nice to say about it. Sorry, Bert.
MOTOWN JUNKIES VERDICT
(I’ve had MY say, now it’s your turn. Agree? Disagree? Leave a comment, or click the thumbs at the bottom there. Dissent is encouraged!)
You’re reading Motown Junkies, an attempt to review every Motown A- and B-side ever released. Click on the “previous” and “next” buttons below to go back and forth through the catalogue, or visit the Master Index for a full list of reviews so far.
(Or maybe you’re only interested in Ray Oddis, or Bert Haney & Brice Armstrong? Click for more.)
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| Ray Oddis “Randy, the Newspaper Boy” |
Tony Martin “Talkin’ To Your Picture” |
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The kid just wants to eat his new friend? Well, if we searched deeply enough we’d the find the record, Motown or not, that even Jeffrey Dahmer could love.
Maybe this is a place to note for the record, that if we were going through the “Complete RCA singles” ( or Capitol, or Columbia), they too would be larded with a substantial side order of shit too. I think the selling point of The Complete Motown Singles was to finally placate those of us who were frustrated with continually buying the single-artist anthologies, and buying them over and over again as each set was tweaked with a smidgen of new sides, along with all the repeats. In effect, TCMS says, “Okay, here’s everything, crap and all. Now, shut up.”
We’ll come to a day yet where even Smokey spells it out, “the day you take one, you have to take the other.” Go outside and check, the sun is still shining, there’ll be happiness again, and in three months, we’ll all be able to buy Mary Wells biography.
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Compared to this, “Monster Mash” is a masterpiece.
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This is utter garbage (no offence, Mr. Haney-I know it was just done for fun). The only thing worse on a Motown label is the so-called “A” side.
But, I don’t see how waiting 2 years to release this “hurt” its chances to be a “contemporary parody”. Just how did things change in USA between 1962 and 1964 to make this “attempt at a parody” to be any weaker?
Were “The Munsters” and “The Addams Family” airing new episodes in 1962, but their original runs were already over in 1964?
It seems that this record was released (Nov. ’64) in time to take advantage of the “A” side’s relationship to Christmas, but not of the “B” side’s relationship to Halloween. Maybe bad timing.
But, I seriously doubt that Motown expect ANY sales at all. It must have been released as a favour to Haney and Oddis, caused by a need to placate Al Klein (who must have owed a favour to Haney), and likely someone else in Motown (who owed a favour to Oddis), OR, simply good marketing (as stated by Al Abrams) to keep DJs on friendly terms with the company, to get their records played more often.
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It was originally cut as an attempt to ride the then-current success of “Monster Mash”, which – while not a great idea in itself – was even less relevant two years later.
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Oh! You meant that releasing “Happy Ghoul Tide” in 1962 would have made it a “contemporary parody of “The Monster Mash”! More people would have remembered the latter soon after it was on its original run than 2 years later. Yes, I can see that that is true. But, I doubt that anyone would have bought this record in 1962 because it was a “parody” of “Monster Mash”.
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Agreed – a bad idea only made worse by subsequent poor handling of said bad idea.
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I am waiting for the Temptations 45—-my all time favorite !!!!!!!!!!!
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Yep. We all are, but I’ve already visited Wikipedia to look up a little Tony Martin for myself. Married a few years to Alice Faye, and then (60 years) the rest of his long life to Cyd Charisse. That’s not doing too bad. 98(!) when he died just two weeks ago; I wonder if he ever touched a drink or a cigarette? He may have gone unnoticed -and arrived too late for Motown to do anything for him- but a look at that same Wikipedia page shows a string of success that doesn’t leave you feeling sorry for Martin.
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Tony Martin was, BIG, BIG, BIG in the ’40s and ’50s. He was still an icon throughout the ’60s. I’m still not sure what Berry Gordy thought he could do with him. He just didn’t have the channels to market MOR music. He knew that music, but didn’t have the connections to get it distributed to the right places and sold to the people that wanted it.
I find it interesting that Tony Martin was Jewish. All those years I thought he was Italian. Not that it matters any.
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Poor old “Ray Oddis”, not even the star of his own comments thread… đŸ™‚
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Sad, sad, sad period in Motown. Smh!
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Lol I hate to sound soo dumb right now, but is this Mr. Haney you Motown Junkies speak of the same Mr. Haney from Green Acres????
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Hi Damecia,
Not dumb, it’s a valid question! No, he’s a comedian named Bert Haney, who made some terrible Motown records, but he’s still with us and was gracious enough to come on here and laugh off the criticism, which won him a lot of admirers – click on “Haney and Armstrong” over on the right there and read the comments in the reviews.
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This record is terrible. However, it’s not as bad as the other side. Terrible I think is an adequate word to describe this, whereas my vocabulary doesn’t stretch to find a single word to describe the awfulness of “Randy”. Why do I think this is not as bad as “Randy”? Well, it does have a rather odd rhythm to it which has a modicum of entertainment value, and there is some mild wit in the lyrics. I say mild in its mildest sense. These two elements lift it above the depravity of the other side. Presumably, when this was recorded in 1962 it was influenced by the “Monster Mash” #1 at the time. In fact , this is no worse than the average Pinky and Perky or Sooty and Sweep disc. Upon giving the go ahead to release this, it’s a wonder Motown didn’t strike a deal with EMI Columbia to licence Pinky and Perky records in the USA. Imagine that, Pinky and Perky records on TAMLA!!! I agree with you, this record deserve 1/10 whereas “Randy” deserves 0/10. I say 0/10 because if you took anyone off the street with no musical or recording experience and asked them to record something for 3 minutes the chances are they would produce something more entertaining than “Randy”. Ray Oddis, whoever you are, if you’re still alive and ever read this, shame on you.
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Would Motown’s leasing and releasing Pinky and Perky or Sooty and Sweep be any more surprising than their having leased and released “We’re Off To Dublin In The Green” by The Abbey Tavern Singers?
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“…a different ‘Ray Oddis’ to the ‘Ray Oddis’ featured on the A-side…”
WHAT? How does that happen?
Anyway, I just thought I would pop on to say that I enjoyed this record (the B-side, that is). Since I joined Nixon in trashing the “break-in” recording by Mr. Haney & co., I thought it only fair.
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Motown sometimes played a little fast and loose with artist credits – here, two unrelated cuts are bundled together under the same (fictional) artist name.
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As I remember it, that was because Al Klein wanted to release “Randy The Newspaper Boy” for Christmas 1964, but didn’t have any other Ray Oddis cuts handy. But he DID have Bert Haney and his partner in his artists camp. And Bert told Al about “Happy Ghoul Tide” (which, apparently already had been recorded by Haney’s partner, to be released for Halloween. So, Bert and Al decided that they should make it a dual holiday themed single for Halloween/Christmas. It was a novelty record not using Ray Otis’ real name, anyway, so it didn’t really matter much. Maybe it would get a few hundred “Holiday sales”, but wouldn’t get enough following for the artists to go out on tour.
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Must I feel ashamed if it made me laugh ?
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Nope! đŸ™‚
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I fear the context is being lost here, and not just because I actually find this track kind of charming.
This cut WAS released in 1962, under the name “Brice Armstrong & the All American Ghouls” (apparently a random reference to the radio series “Jack Armstrong the All-American Boy”), on the obscure Duchess Records label of New Orleans. And as American novelty records of this era go, it really isn’t that bad. It’s somewhat clever, and it shows plenty of evidence that they put a lot of actual thought and effort into it. They did an especially good job of having the regular voice interact with the vari-speed chipmunked voice, which was recorded separately – not at all easy to do and still make it sound like a natural conversation. They totally pulled it off here.
Comparing this to national hits like “Monster Mash” is survivorship bias. There are literally thousands of other small-label novelty records from this period that are FAR worse, especially Christmas records. You just won’t ever hear them because they weren’t hits and they weren’t re-released by Motown. I don’t think a “Monster Mash” tie-in is what they were going for anyway. It’s just a silly stand-alone novelty record. The fact that it popped up on a VIP B-side under an inaccurate credit two years later shouldn’t be counted against it.
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