1. Laverne & Shirley Sing (1976)
Before the Internet, it could be tough to drum up promotion, even for a hit show, which mean networks often had to come up with decidedly unorthodox means to hype their product. One of the methods many showsâcult favorites and big hits alikeâturned to was the novelty album. These albums were usually recorded by one of the seriesâ stars as themselves, occasionally hoping to launch a recording career to supplement their acting work, but every so often, an album was recorded in character, as though the characters from the show were unexpectedly offered a record deal. This might have made sense for The Archies or any other TV band that performed songs on its show, but it strained credulity a bit to believe that Laverne and Shirley (of the show of the same name) would suddenly become recording superstars. Yet at the height of that sitcomâs popularity, Cindy Williams and Penny Marshall recorded an excruciatingly off-key album featuring songs that⌠didnât have much to do with the show, outside of the idea of Laverne and Shirley singing them.
2. Lenny & Squiggy Present Lenny And The Squigtones (1979)
Three years after Laverne & Shirley Sing, Michael McKean and David L. Lander cut their own record as Laverne and Shirleyâs lovable, lowlife neighbors, Lenny and Squiggy. Recorded live at the Roxy, it featured a mix of â50s parodies (some of which they had already performed on the TV show, such as âNight After Nightâ) and comic patter. Released by Neil Bogartâs Casablanca label when it was riding high on the proceeds from its disco acts and Kiss, the album has all the superficial earmarks of a quick cash-in job. But itâs also the missing link between the Credibility Gapâthe counterculture comedy troupe where McKean and Lander got their startâand McKeanâs later, more enduring foray into rock comedy, Spinal Tap. (Christopher Guest, who plays guitar on the album, is listed in the credits under the name of his Spinal Tap character, Nigel Tufnel.)
3. SpongeBob SquarePants, The Best Day Ever (2006)
TV character novelty albums have faded away in recent years, but they havenât wholly disappeared, particularly in the realm of kidsâ TV. SpongeBob SquarePantsâ relentlessly cheerful The Best Day Ever is a charming throwbackâand thatâs not just because Brian Wilson, Tommy Ramone, and members of NRBQ make cameos. The recordâs numerous skits refer to a free-form radio station called WH2Oâwhich has its own retro-sounding jingleâcommercials (e.g., âSpongeBob & The Hi-Seas in concert, with special guest Planktonâbe there and be square!â), and request-line jokesters. In between these thematic conceits are â60s-flavored tunes sung by the showâs characters. Co-written and produced by Andy Paley, whose rĂŠsumĂŠ includes luminaries such as The Beach Boys and Madonna, this music touches on sun-kissed pop, surf and garage rock, and power-pop. SpongeBobâs nasally singing voice (naturally) dominates the record, although Squidwardâs evil-Broadway-villain warbling and Sandyâs vaudevillian twang arenât too shabby either.
4. Gomer Pyle, U.S.M.C. (1965)
Although Jim Naborsâ memorable baritone made him a TV variety-show staple throughout the late â60s and â70s, even earning him his own such series from 1969 to 1971, the first time Naborsâ visage graced an album cover, it wasnât even his own. Gomer Pyle, the naĂŻve bumpkin whose popularity with viewers turned an intended one-off appearance on The Andy Griffith Show into 150 episodes of his own series, may not have been much of a Marine (he never made it beyond private first class), but his self-titled album comes with considerable country street cred. Thereâs no question that the majority of the proceedings were intended for novelty purposes, as evidenced by track names like âShazam!â and âGomer Says Hey!â, but in addition to future Bread frontman David Gates arranging and conducting the album and writing three of its songs, there are also tracks composed by John D. Loudermilk and Roger Miller.
5. Goober Pyle, Goober Sings! (1968)
Wherever Gomer Pyle went, his cousin Goober would inevitably follow, which may explain why George Lindseyâin the guise of Jim Naborsâ TV kinâreleased his own album a few years later. Goober Sings! was probably also intended to help raise the profile of the characterâs new small-screen home: With Andy Griffith heading off to seek his fortune elsewhere on the TV dial, The Andy Griffith Show became Mayberry R.F.D., with Lindsey being one of the cast members who was carried over from the original series. Although arguably as much of a novelty effort as Gomer Pyle U.S.M.C., Goober Sings! sounds less like Mayberry than Bakersfield, with enough twang that itâs no wonder Lindsey ended up working with Buck Owens a few years later on Hee Haw.
6. Felix Unger and Oscar Madison, The Odd Couple Sings (1973)
Though billed as an album by âJack Klugman and Tony Randall,â The Odd Couple Sings is performed almost entirely in character as Felix and Oscar from the series that made the two men household names. And, actually, as TV character novelty albums go, this one isnât too bad. For one thing, Randallâs actually got some musical-comedy performance skills that he plays up to the hilt, and for another, thereâs just something goofy and fun about hearing these two patter-singing their way through a variety of covers over a symphony orchestra. Their version of Carly Simonâs âYouâre So Vainâ is a novelty album track for the ages, if only for the moment when Klugman growls âYou walked in to the party, like you were walkinâ onto a yacht,â and is followed by Randallâs pitch-perfect, horrified, âWhat?!â in response.
7. Roosevelt Franklin, The Year Of Roosevelt Franklin (1974)
The residents of Sesame Street have released dozens upon dozens of records, all of which are great and fairly novel, but the one that best captures the intricacies of a fictional character is 1974âs The Year Of Roosevelt Franklin. A magenta Muppet that appeared on Sesame Streetâs first seven seasons, Franklin taught kids about family, pride, rhyming, and not drinking poison. Though Franklin was incredibly popular, the Matt Robinson-voiced character was ultimately jettisoned from the show after African American viewers complained that his scatting and rowdy elementary school constituted a negative racial stereotype. Before Franklin disappeared from the show, though, he recorded The Year Of Roosevelt Franklin, which found him (and Robinson) talking about traffic safety, sharing, and how Roosevelt learned to accept âThe Skin Iâm In.â Franklin only performed a few songs actually on Sesame Street, but The Year Of⌠is a smart, solid record that further fleshed out a character that never really got his due.
8. Mister Ed, Straight From The Horseâs Mouth (1962)
In 1962, Jay Livingston, who sang the theme song to the talking-horse show Mister Ed, released a single containing the TV theme, backed with a song called âPretty Little Filly.â Not to be outdone, Mister Ed himself recorded this childrenâs album that same year. After singing his theme song himself, Mister Ed holds forth on such topics as the nature of different sounds and addresses questions raised by his backup singers, such as, âWhy is a blue sky blue?â âIâm very educational, in an odd sort of way!â he boasts, and maybe he is, but he doesnât sound quite like himself. Maybe Allan âRockyâ Lane, who provided the voice of Mister Ed on the TV show, couldnât make the gig. Or maybe Mister Ed just had a cold.
9. Mr. Spockâs Music From Outer Space (1967)
Star Trek was a dud as far as the Nielsen Company was concerned, surviving for three seasons on NBC in spite of weak viewership. But those who tuned in for the voyages of the Starship Enterprise did so passionately, turning the series into a marketing giant. Gene Roddenberryâs characters appeared in the pages of Gold Key comics, were represented by the garish tokens of Idealâs Star Trek board game, and, beginning in 1967, got pressed into the grooves of records issued by Paramount subsidiary Dot. Building on the popularity of Spock, the coolly rational half-Vulcan, Leonard Nimoy was hired to goose up the loosely Star Trek-related collection of intergalactic exotica that would become Mr. Spockâs Music From Outer Space. But Nimoy wound up taking a more active hand, collaborating with recording-studio fixture Charles Grean on the spoken-word track âTwinkle Twinkle Little Earthâ and lending the characterâs recorded debut a dedicated panache. Spockâs winking ditties and cautionary tales (âA Visit To A Sad Planetâ twists like a short story in a yellowed pulp mag) served as Nimoyâs entry point to the music industry, inadvertently launching a side career that spanned five albums for Dot. The actor became the star attraction following his second LP, The Two Sides Of Leonard Nimoyâbut not before he delivered Spockâs definitive musical statement, the campy, half-sung âHighly Illogical.â
10. Gunsmokeâs Festus Sings âNâ Talks âBout Dodge City âNâ Stuff (1968)
In the early, pre-grizzled years of his career, Ken Curtis sang with the Sons Of The Pioneers and starred in Columbia B-Westerns as a singing cowboy. In some of his later performances in bigger movies, such as The Searchers (directed by his then father-in-law, John Ford), he continued to strum a guitar and croon cowboy love songs in his own smooth, pleasantly forgettable voice. But when Curtis finally got to record an album, he stayed in character as Festus, the sidekick to Marshal Matt Dillon that he played for 16 years on Gunsmoke, and used the high-pitched, nasal whine heâd created for the characterâthe voice of someone whose sinuses were clogged with too much prairie dust. As Festus Haggen, he sings about his hometown (âDodge Cityâ), his relatives (âThe Ballad Of Hawg Haggenâ), and his favorite simple pleasures (âCorn Bread And Buttermilkâ), alongside monologues peppered with corny jokes. (âThey was a woman in our town had a set of twin boys named Pete and RepeatâŚâ)
11. Beverly Hillbillies (1965)
Paul Henningâs white-trash-with-money sitcom was the biggest TV comedy hit of the 1960s (and a source of enduring embarrassment to its broadcast home, the âTiffany network,â CBS), and this album was just one of the ancillary products created to tap into its success. The showâs regular cast membersâBuddy Ebsen, Irene Ryan, Max Baer Jr., Donna Douglas, Nancy Kulp, and Raymond Baileyâall participate in specialty numbers inspired by the showâs various catchphrases and running gags (âVittles,â âLong Talk With That Boy,â âCritters,â âWhat A Great Doctor Granny Isâ), bookended by the showâs theme song, âThe Ballad Of Jed Clampett,â performed by âspecial guestsâ Lester Flatt and Earl Scruggs. (Released as a single, it became the only record the legendary bluegrass duo ever recorded that made it to No. 1 on the country charts.) A few years later, Irene Ryan dipped into this well for her own novelty single, âGrannyâs Mini-skirt.â
12. The Original Music From Dark Shadows (1969)
In the late â60s, the gothic soap opera Dark Shadows made an unlikely teen pin-up idol of Jonathan Frid, the Canadian actor in his mid-40s who played Barnabas Collins, the âgoodâ vampire doomed to spent a haunted eternity crushing on his unobtainable lost love, Josette. The inevitable tie-in album features several of the showâs memorable musical themes, intercut with Frid and co-star David Selby, who played the werewolf Quentin, performing songsââI, Barnabus,â âIâll Be With You, Always,â âShadows Of The Night (Quentinâs Theme)ââthat express their charactersâ unquenchable longings and regrets. Actually, these numbers are composed as song lyrics, and the non-singer Frid maintains his dignity by reciting his songs instead of singing them, turning them into pop-gothic spoken-word poetry. [PDN]
13. The Simpsons Sing The Blues (1990)
If one of the foremost tenets of the TV character novelty album is the element of cashing in on something while itâs hot, then The Simpsons Sing The Blues has to be near the top of the list in that department. Recorded in a fervor between recording sessions for episodes of the show during its first year, The Simpsons Sing The Blues is a rush job through and through, even if thereâs something entertaining about the way it captures the months when The Simpsons went from a new TV show to a global phenomenon. The album went platinum, and its single, âDo The Bartman,â hit No. 1 in the United Kingdom. (Fox didnât release âBartmanâ as a single in the U.S., perhaps to boost sales of the LP during the holiday season.) Is The Simpsons Sing The Blues any good? Not really, but itâs an essential way to understand the mania surrounding the seriesâ successâor the success of any series that arrives out of nowhere and becomes a white-hot sensation unexpectedly.
