- published: 05 Feb 2011
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Comedy rock is rock music mixed with comedy, often satire and parody.
Early American examples include Stan Freberg, who lampooned artists such as Elvis Presley, Harry Belafonte and The Platters, and Sheb Wooley. Freberg's "Purple People Eater" reached No. 1 on the Billboard pop chart in 1958 and stayed there 6 weeks.
In Britain during the 1950s and early 1960s comedians such as Charlie Drake and The Goons frequently appeared in the top ten with humorous rock 'n' roll records—the latter, along with Lewis Carroll and Edward Lear, were to influence the word-play of John Lennon's lyrics. Later British groups specialised in comedy: these included The Scaffold, The Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band and Alberto y Lost Trios Paranoias. Later in Britain, in the 2000s, Mitch Benn released several studio albums that satirised current affairs using various musical genres, but mainly rock. His 2012 Breaking Strings album was critically acclaimed for its rock sensibility.
Some comedy rock artists, such as Frank Zappa, and more recently Tenacious D, 15 Minutes of Fame and Flight of the Conchords create songs with amusing, witty, and/or over-the-top lyrics. Other acts such as Dread Zeppelin and Beatallica rely on unusual or intentionally contrasting genre-mixing for comic effect, while bands like GWAR and Rosemary's Billygoat utilize outrageous costumes and over-the-top stage shows.
Dwayne Douglas Johnson (born May 2, 1972), also known by his ring name The Rock, is an American and Canadian actor, producer and semi-retired professional wrestler, signed with WWE. Johnson was a college football player for the University of Miami, winning a national championship on the 1991 Miami Hurricanes football team. He later played for the Calgary Stampeders in the Canadian Football League, and was cut two months into the 1995 season. This led him to become a professional wrestler like his grandfather, Peter Maivia, and his father, Rocky Johnson (from whom he also inherited his Canadian citizenship). Through Maivia he is considered a non-blood relative of the Anoa'i wrestling family.
Originally billed as "Rocky Maivia", he gained mainstream fame in the World Wrestling Federation (WWF/E) from 1996 to 2004 as a major figure in the company's Attitude Era, and was the first third-generation wrestler in the company's history. He returned to wrestling part-time for WWE from 2011 to 2013 and continues to make sporadic non-wrestling appearances for the company. The Rock has had seventeen championship reigns in WWE, including ten as a world champion, winning the WWF/E Championship eight times and the WCW/World Championship twice. WWE.com described him as a 10-time WWE World Heavyweight Champion. He won the Intercontinental Championship twice and the WWF Tag Team Championship five times. He is the sixth Triple Crown Champion in WWE history, and won the 2000 Royal Rumble. The Rock was instrumental in helping the organization win the ratings war against the World Championship Wrestling (WCW).