Spike Jones and His City Slickers Tickled Our Funny Bone

Maestro Lindley Armstrong Jones and his orchestra were able musicians, but that fact might have been hard to detect when they assumed their show business identities as Spike Jones and the City Slickers.

Spike Jones would often step to the podium and face his orchestra with a baton in one hand and a blank-firing pistol in the other. The City Slickers played and sang parodies of familiar popular and classical pieces, punctuating them vocally with shrieks, belches, gargling sounds, and hysterical laughter. They also played such unorthodox percussion instruments as doorbells, cowbells, washboards, toilet seats, and bicycle horns.

Jones, who was born in Long Beach, California, on this date, December 14, in 1911 played drums with various radio studio bands during the 1930s. But he had more fun with send-ups of conventional music, and he found other musicians with the same zany streak who joined him to become the City Slickers. Their heyday was the 1940s and 1950s with radio shows, recordings, television, and personal appearance tours.  In this writer’s college years, Jones brought his zanies to our campus, not once but twice.  Their records were always funny, but it was hilarious to see them in person.

Conductor Jones frequently greeted his audiences with, “Good evening, music lovers,” before lurching into what he called “Music Depreciation Lessons.” In his self-deprecating evaluation, he said he and his band were “the dandruff” in longhair music.

Sometimes they used the original lyrics of songs but interlaced them with laughter, gunshots, and other sounds which only a Spike Jones connoisseur could identify with certainty. A big favorite recording was “Cocktails for Two,” about a romance which began and blossomed at the 5 o’clock cocktail hour. The original was mercilessly cut to shreds. In person, pandemonium broke lose as band members ran around the stage during rip-roaring musical passage with sirens, horns, and hiccups.

“All I Want for Christmas Is My Two Front Teeth” was a Spike Jones original, sung in falsetto by a Jones regular, hefty George Rock.

The Slickers put words to the “William Tell Overture,” turning Rossini’s piece into a horse race. Doodles Weaver described the progress of the horses, with pun at every bend of the track. For example: “Bubble Gum is sticking to the rail." "Toothpaste is being squeezed out on the rail." "Banana is coming up through the bunch.”

It was “all for fun and fun for all” when Spike Jones and the City Slickers did a show. The madcap performances are still on video and YouTube.

Spike Jones and the City Slickers may seem akin to riotous revels or wassailing which characterizes the holidays for many. But they can remind us not to take ourselves too seriously. If we can laugh at ourselves during Advent and Christmas, we may find a kinship with Jesus, who went to parties and was accused of being a glutton and a drunkard (Matthew 11:19).

A Verse for Today

“I came that they might have life, and have it abundantly” (John 10:10).

Each day through New Year’s Day, January 1, 2013, inspirational thoughts will appear, in keeping with Advent, Christmas, and New Year’s Day.  These are from my book, Reflections for the Festive Seasons.  © 2002.  All rights reserved.