Not long ago, I located a clip from American Bandstand which featured Lenny & The Squigtones, the comedy band spun off from Laverne & Shirley. That clip, which has the band performing "Love Is A Terrible Thing" & "King of The Cars", is over at Saturday Morning Archives, but could also end up here at a later date.
Livingretro79 posted this choice piece of the band's best known song, "Night After Night". You can tell that Lenny (Michael McKean) & Squiggy (David L. Lander) are having fun. The live audience at the taping of Laverne & Shirley certainly was. The story goes that the roots of what would become Spinal Tap were formed here, as Christopher Guest was credited as a guitarist, under his Spinal Tap alias, Nigel Tufnel.
McKean & Lander brought their act to Albany for the local Cerebral Palsy telethon and played this song, and that was the only time I remember hearing it.
Here's "Night After Night":
Well, now you understand why Lander was hired, presumably by Jerry Lewis himself, to voice the comedy legend's animated alter-ego on Will The Real Jerry Lewis Please Sit Down, which predated Laverne by a few years.
2 comments:
I'd heard in interviews that the characters of Lenny & Squiggy were created by McKean & Lander way back when they were in college!
Again, a great spoof of teen doo-wop tunes but just as much fun to listen to - if not moreso. I think there may be traction in seeing Spinal Tap coming from this, as Lenny & The Squigtones were a satire of late 50s doo-wop while Spinal Tap was a satire on metal bands of the 70s and 80s.
BTW - did you notice that the page turner is turning the song book backwards??
Missed that part.
I think I read, too, about the origins of the act. Man, ABC missed the boat when they could've spun off Lenny & Squiggy into their own series. Imagine if they, and not Joanie & Chachi, were given that chance........
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