Monday, January 28, 2013

All of Frank Fontaine's album covers

             
                all of the album covers of Frank Fontaine, aka Crazy Guggenheim


















5 comments:

  1. Hello, Mister Dennehy!

    Fontaine was kind of in the Jim Nabors camp where the goofball opens his mouth and sings like an angel.

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  2. That's what's missing from McKimson's RABBIT'S KIN---a scene where Pete Puma sings like an angel, in-between braining himself with a mallet. ("A whole LOTTA lumps!") In drag, of course!

    It wasn't until I got to hear DUFFY'S TAVERN that I realized where Jackie Gleason's "Joe the Bartender" and "Crazy Guggenheim" skits came from. They're variations of "Archie" (Ed Gardner) and "Finnegan," (Charlie Cantor). Cantor's archetypal "moron" voice ("Duh...") has been imitated so many times, it's practically a comedy icon. As far as I know, DUFFY'S TAVERN originated that characterization. "Mr Dennehy," like "Duffy," is a character who's constantly addressed, but never seen or heard. He's always on the other end of the phone. ("Archie speakin', Duffy ain't here. Oh, hiya Duffy...")

    DUFFY'S TAVERN, an influential and unjustly forgotten radio show, also inspired a ton of cartoons: Baby Huey, Tex Avery's George & Junior, Herman & Katnip, Snooper & Blabber, etc. Weird how classic, Golden Age pop-culture is slipping down the memory hole now. I had to connect the dots myself, to rediscover factoids that probably used to be common knowledge.

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  3. My dad used to do a great Crazy Guggenheim impersonation. I picked it up, and have now passed the torch to my 5 year old son. The other day, I picked up the "Frank Fontaine sings like Crazy" album at the local Amvets, and my son thought it was the cats ass.

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  4. I was talking about the Crazycharacter with a co-worker just recently. You'll never see this kind of portrayal on TV these PC days. A severely brain-damaged alcoholic talking to a bartender?

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