special introductory
paragraph!
Twisted Christmas
I Am Santa Claus
1994: The Year In Review
More Twisted Christmas
Best Of Twisted Tunes Volume 1
Best Of Twisted Tunes Volume 2
Chipmunks Roasting On An Open Fire
White Trash Christmas
Bob Rivers is a regular "Weird Al" Yankovic the way he makes people laugh with his hilarious musical parodies. But don't get his raison de etre confused with that of Mr. Yankovic -- where the formerly-mustachioed accordian player writes and performs timeless satirical material about watching TV for record albums that sell billions of copies all over the world, Rivers writes timely parodies based on the latest news events or Christmas, hires celebrity soundalikes to sing them over backing provided by studio musicians or karaoke tapes, and plays them on his morning radio show, which is somewhere in the Northwest but it's hard to say where since I've had no Internet access for the last two days thanks to Verizon's compassionate but misguided decision to staff its entire workforce with Special Olympics athletes and stray animals.
Every Christmas around this time, the entire Prindle man-son family (plus the women) whips out the hairy Yule Log and celebrates the birth of the baby Jesus before he grew up to be a filthy hippy. These are wonderful times of familial warmth and presents, with Henry The Dog wearing his special jingly Christmas bandana. But by far the most exciting part of the day is the music, pre-chosen and programmed by none other than top-selling online food critic Mark Prindle, author of I Give Sugar A Thumbs Up! and The Only Good Vegetable Is A Naked Woman In The Hospital.
This man, me, has a wide and woolly collection of Yuletide ear candy from which to choose, including Agoraphobic Nosebleed's A Joyful
Noise, Tori Amos' Midwinter Graces, Angry Snowmans' S/T, Black Coal for Rotten Children and
What We Do is Festive, Bad Religion's Christmas Songs,
Band Aid's "Do They Know It's Christmastime?" 7", The Beach Boys' Christmas Album, a bootleg compilation of The Beatles' annual
Christmas records, Canned Hamm's Sincerely Christmas, Johnny Cash's four Xmas albums (The Christmas
Spirit, The Johnny Cash Family Christmas Album, Classic Christmas and Country Christmas), Cheap Trick's Christmas Christmas,
Bob Dylan's Christmas In The Heart,
Evil Weiner's "Secret Santa" 7", The Flaming Lips' Atlas Eets Christmas, Rob Halford's Winter Songs,
Daryl Hall & Joan Oates' "Jingle Bell Rock" 7", The Jethro Tull Christmas Album,
Misfitsmas's 11 Hits From Heaven, The Moody Blues' December, the Pearl Jam and REM Christmas singles,
David Peel's Marijuana Christmas, Paul Revere And The Raiders' A Christmas Past... And Present!, A Sesame Street
Christmas, South Park's Mr. Hankey's Christmas Classics, The Vandals'
Oi! To The World, The Ventures' Christmas Album and Christmas Joy, Brian Wilson's What I Really Want For Christmas,
Bummed Out Christmas, Dr. Demento's Greatest Novelty Records Of All-Time: Christmas, Hardcore Holiday,
A John Waters Christmas, Punk Rock Xmas, A Rock 'N Roll Christmas, Rockin' Christmas: The Sixties,
We Wish You A Metal Xmas And A Headbanging New Year and the awesome Daddy, Is Santa Really Six Foot Four?
song-poem compilation. But none of these holiday discs excite as much controversy and light-hearted polite chuckling as my five Bob Rivers Christmas CDs. Love them or hate them, Bob Rivers sure writes some shitty songs.
Although his schtick would soon widen to include "rock songs rewritten as Christmas songs," at this early point in his star-studded career he concentrated mostly on "Christmas songs rewritten as songs that may or may not have anything to do with Christmas." Twisted Christmas specifically features 6 Christmas Carol parodies (only 1 of which remains holiday-related), 2 ostensibly humorous spoken word pieces, 2 original Christmas novelty songs and 1 rock instrumental version of a Christmas carol, for 25 minutes of hit-or-miss mainstream comedy for the whole family.
Let me explain what I mean by 'mainstream humor.' Although not an actual Hollywood descriptor as far as I know, I use this term (learned from old college chum Chris Crowson) when referring to simplistic, obvious 'comedy' that rests on the assumption that any reference to a pop culture figure or common everyday nuisance counts as a joke even if you don't bother writing a punchline to go with it. Translated into song parody form, mainstream humor results in clever song titles wasted on non-humorous verses that you're supposed to laugh at simply because they rhyme and aren't the correct lyrics. Thus, Twisted Christmas gives us such honestly witty parody song titles as "We Wish You Weren't Living With Us," "The Restroom Door Said 'Gentlemen,'" and "Foreigners" (parody of that "Glor-or-or-or-or-oria" carol), then supplements them with boring lyrics about common everyday nuisances. Put it all together and you're in for a hilarious holiday treat! (if you're high on PCP)
To be fair, Christmas music sounds a lot better when you actually listen to it on Christmas. Twisted Christmas fits the jovial modern-day feeling of the day well, and there's hardly an eggnogger alive who won't enjoy the bevy of funny voices getting angrier and angrier through each verse of "The Twelve Pains Of Christmas": after all, it's more novel than listening to ACTUAL Christmas carols for the 4 billionth time. And even your grandmother will get a chuckle out of original compositions "The Chimney Song" (in which a young girl unknowingly sings a little song about Santa being dead in her chimney) and "I'm Dressin' Up Like Santa (When I Get Out On Parole)" (a country hoedown by a fellow who basically just plans to rob everybody on Christmas Eve), especially since with the rate kids are fucking these days, odds are she's only about 34 years old, the whore.
As you'd likely expect from a CD performed by voice-over artists and studio musicians, Twisted Christmas sounds more like a multiple-artist compilation than an album by a guy named Bob Rivers, but such is the nature of this man's ouvre. I don't even know why they bother calling them Bob Rivers albums, quite frankly. What the hell does he actually DO all day anyway? Just write the shitty lyrics? Big fuffin' deal. It's not like they have any jokes in them. "Wreck The Malls"? HA HA HA ! "O Come All Ye Grateful Dead-Heads"? THAT WAS SO FUNNY, I FORGOT TO LAUGH! Unfortunately it turned out I had Alzheimer's.
I honestly do enjoy hearing "The Twelve Pains Of Christmas" ('Hang-ovahs!'), "The Chimney Song" (cute little girl voice!), "We Wish You Weren't Living With Us" (short, sweet and ends with a great non-rhyme), "The Restroom Door Said 'Gentlemen'" (just a clever idea) and "A Message From The King" (spoken word message from 'Elvis Presley,' who keeps interrupting his heartfelt words to eat various foodstuffs). But how goddamned hard is it to make a TWENTY-FIVE-MINUTE holiday joke album that doesn't half-suck? This CD literally HALF-SUCKS! Who the hell wants to hear some asshole bitch new wave girl singing 'toughly' about tearing up a mall (to sissy 'metal' backing)? What is the point of playing an instrumental rock version of "Joy To The World"? Is there some hilarious instrumental joke in there that I missed? Also, why waste four and a half minutes on a terrible Jack Nicholson impersonation? Who's going to sit and listen to that shit on Christmas, when there's food to be opened and presents to be inserted? And worst of all, why drag your already questionable CD down to the level of redneck Rush Limbaugh hate-mongering by turning "Foreigners" into an ignorant anti-illegal-immigrant harangue? I'm so sick and fucking tired of flag-waving pieces of shit cussing out Mexicans for 'taking jobs from Americans,' when it is completely blindingly obvious that the real assholes here are the greedy, unpatriotic company owners who give American jobs to illegal immigrants just to make a little more profit. If you want to hate somebody, hate THESE rich, heartless pricks - not the penniless Mexicans who are just trying to make better lives for their families. If White American company owners didn't make it so easy for them to 'take jobs from Americans,' just maybe they'd stop coming here! As for outsourcing, that seems a bit anti-American as well, but I'm no expert on the global economy so I'll leave that to you academia people with the book doohickies and calculator whatsits.
In conclusion, if you buy Twisted Christmas, it's LITERALLY your funeral. So have fun DYING if you decide to buy it!
I thankfully escaped it this year, but every previous Christmas for the past five years or so, my mother has for some reason bought me a Dave Barry book, which I would then pretend to like before discreetly exchanging it at Barnes & Noble for a book that isn't a complete piece of shit. How sad it must be then to discover that Bob Rivers is the Dave Barry of music, and that my youthful quest to actively seek out and purchase his entire discography was but a fool's folly of folderol. But never again will I be wish-washed by this man's codswallop gimcrackery. His trifling gewgaws have had their day in the sun, but now it's time for them to make like a raisin and 'grape outta here!'
Any schlub with a penis can parody a Christmas song; hell, I was Nehi to a grasshopper when I penned the holiday classics "Joy To The Squirrel," "Rudolph The Red-Nosed Fish" and "Deck The Halls With Poison Ivy ('Tis The Season To Be Jivey)." But you know what in life? It takes a REAL man to take a normal rock song and turn it INTO a Christmas song. Thus, although Bob Rivers' penis herein allows him to give us such infantile pestilence as "Walkin' 'Round In Women's Underwear," "I Came Upon A Roadkill Deer" and "Teddy The Red-Nosed Senator," his internal manly soul demands that he stretch out beyond his preordained parameters and create such stunning audio achievements as an "Iron Man" parody called "I Am Santa Claus," the lyrics of "O Little Town Of Bethlehem" set to the music of "House Of The Rising Sun," and "My Favorite Things" converted into a near-perfect stylistic parody of Bon Scott-era AC/DC. Interestingly, I actually love the infantile pestilence "Teddy The Red-Nosed Senator" ("He's a drunken S.O.B.!") and despise the stunning audio achievement "I Am Santa Claus" (generally when one wants to do a Black Sabbath parody, one tries to find a singer who sounds even THE SLIGHTEST BIT like John "Ossy" Osbourne), so it just goes to show you that artificial dichotomies cannot be trusted. If nothing else, I hope you come away from this review with that important piece of knowledge. If you do, that's proof that you're a genius; if not, you're the dumbest person in the world.
So what we have here are seven parodies of Xmas songs -- including the terrific "What's It To Ya?" ("Hallelujah!") and "Didn't I Get This Last Year?" ("Do You Hear What I Hear?") -- as well as the three rock parodies, a very clever instrumental version of "O Christmas Tree" featuring hand- and chainsaws as percussive and melodic devices, and an interminable FIVE! FIVE! FIVE! spoken word comedy pieces! Who in Fuck's Mind of Asshole wants to sit through five pieces of fuckin' TALKING bullshit on Christmas Goddamned Day!? The point is to have something funny and Christmasy playing in the background while the family chit-chats; you can't talk over some jerk talking! Especially when he's doing "The Godfather's Warning Message to Santa" (not a single laugh in two and a half minutes), "The Christmas Wizard Of Oz Parody" (not a single chuckle in SIX GODDAMNED MINUTES OF HELL), or - in the most obvious and depressing example of nepotism since George Bush gave his son a cushy blow job - letting his boring children giggle and fuck around on the album for the longest two minutes and eighteen seconds on record. Ahh, I'm so bitter and sarcastic, I could make a TEAR DUCT cry!
But there I go with my dichotomies again. One of the spoken word pieces is actually funny and absurd as all hell -- "The Under Tree World Of Jacques Cousteau." They literally conduct their entire show UNDER A TREE! And worry about running out of air while exploring UNDER A TREE! I was all laughin' and shit, and smilin' and UNDER A TREE! You know? That's funny as a bunny dipped in honey shoving money in a nunny's runny cunny!
And yes, my mother did smoke during her pregnancy, but they say I turned out great three months early.
I'm drunk.
If the pitch catches, songs I like, I'm very foreign!
These aren't Christmas songs. They'er songs about news events of 1994, of which there were a billion. Remember the baseball
strike? Remember John Wayne Bobbitt getting his pud lopped off? Remember OJ Simpson murdering his wife? Remember
Nancy Kerrigan getting her knees whacked by an ice skating protoge? Remember the Middle East? Remember the Rolling Stones,
and how old they were? Remember the kid getting caned in Manila or wherever, for breaking car windshields like a pud?
Reemmber Michael Jordan trying baseball? Remember Whitewater? Remember John Denver getting a DWI? Remember NAFTA?
Remember The Lion King? If not, you'll LOVE this CD! It featuers hilarious things like "Take Baseball And Shove It"
(piece of shit), "G'bye Ding-A-Ling" (because the best way to make a hilarious novelty song is to parody a NOVELTY SONG, dumbass),
"White Ford Bronco" ("Hot Rod Lincoln"), "You've Got A Brand New Pair Of Figure Skates," "PLO & Israelis" (complete with
uproarious, hilaritime funny fake accents like Balki on Perfect Stanger Assholes), "Grampa Loved The Rolling Stones,"
"Cane 'Em Good" ("Whip It," but with different lyrics), "Michael Jordan Ain't Bo" ("Baby Please Don't Go" - quite a stretch,
but it's short), "Whitewater" (hilarious! It's The Doobie Brothers' "Black Water"! But it's about the WhiteGate scandal!
Remember the Tailgate Scandal? Whenever there's a presidential scandal, you have to put a word in front of the suffix
"Gate," because "Watergate" was actually just about some water), "D.W.I. Colorado" (he's dead now from flying a plane up
my ass), "The NAFTA Anthem" (fuck you, idiot) and "A Big Ton O' Moola" (based on The Lion King's "Hakuna Montata,"
which means "No Worries.") Put 'em altogether and you have a CD with abot four great songs, four passable songs, and four
shitty songs. Put 'em altogether and you have a Bob Rivers CD. Put 'em altogether, and keep 'em separated. Also, check
out the piss in my dick. It's yellow, I bet you a dollar. Also, I bet my butt smells like human shit, because a lot of
people. Also I have nitemares about things a lot. Also, I had WHOOO! Also, WHOO!!! Also, I said she said - but here's important:
Also, here it is: my name is easy to find on the Internet, yet nobody I used to know ever emails me. Know why? Because
none of them give enough of a shit about me to Google me! That's how cool I was in the past, and present!
This CD is seriously only half good. How can people record so many songs that are so bad? I don't understand it. Also,
I got a new computer today, so if this review looks weird, that's why. I requested that all fonts on this new computer
be "Wingding Sweet Poontings."
I'm still drunk.
This time around, Rob Shivers brings you five songs about Santa, two about Christmas shopping, and then one each about fat people, drunk driving Mexicans, dog piss, Jesus, butts, and alcohol. Six are parodies of popular rock and roll songs; seven are comical rewrites of Christmas songs. Several feature wacky dialogue and sound effects within. Things and those parodied within this sequel to Twisted Christmas include heterosexual exercise guru Richard Simmons, masculine Athens band The B-52's, British hard blues band Led Zeppelin, former rock and roll lardass Elvis Presley, folk rock legends The Beatles, father of top-selling male vocalist Frank Sinatra Jr. Frank Sinatra, exceptional yet deceased guitar player Jimi Hendrix, and the infamous MTV clip of David Bowie and Bing Crosby performing "The Little Drummer Boy" together. If you love any or all of these famous figures or groups of people, you'll simply LOVE the song "Buttcracker Suite"!
Once again, Bob gives us some good, some bad and some just okay. Everybody will have their own opinions about which tracks are the strongest, but the correct answers are "It's The Most Fattening Time Of The Year," "Police Stop My Car" (WONDERFUL parody of "Feliz Navidad" that cracks me up every time I sing it to myself), "Sled Zeppelin" (an absolutely PERFECT Robert Plant impersonator converts "D'yer Mak'er" into a "Ho Ho Ho Ho Ho Ho" Santa song - the guy doesn't miss a THING! The "aw aw"s, the "PLEASE! PLEASE!" bit -- he's awesome!), "Hey You! Get Off My House" (I don't know if Frank Sinatra ever actually covered "Get Off Of My Cloud," but if so, this is a great parody of it!) and "Holidaze" (Jimi Hendrix: "'Scuse me, I've got gifts to buy!"). Any other tracks that you might consider strong are probably not, although "There's A Santa Who Looks A Lot Like Elvis" is a hilariously long way to go for a "It's Beginning To Look A Lot Like Christmas" parody.
You'll hear the stinkers for yourself if you want. As much as I love dogs, even I don't want to hear a goddem song called "Yellow Snow! Yellow Snow! Yellow Snow!" if it's not by Frank Zappa. And come on - "All You Need Is Elves"? That's a bit desperate, isn't it? Why not "She ELVES You"? Or "Radar ELVE"? Or "Mrs. Brown You've Got An ELVEly Daughter"? Maybe I'm just jaded because no other Christmas novelty song will ever match up to "What Can You Get A Wookie For Christmas When He Already Owns A Comb". I mean, when perfection has been achieved, why waste your time tooling around in the same shed? Somebody should tell Bob Rivers this. Not me, because he's big, but somebody.
Here's a picture of me orating at an important bunny rabbit function:
Sorry about the orange eyes. I couldn't stop staring at the carrots!
Catch Ya
People are a naturally curious sub-species of man, so it should come as no surprise that they often ask philosophical questions like "Rather than killing minks for their fur, why don't designers just loosely rope together a bunch of live minks and sell it as a 'Wriggly Coat'?" and "Why did you buy eight albums by Bob Rivers if you don't even like him?" Well, luckily I'm just the guy to answer this second question. The answer is "Because the first two I bought by him were actually GOOD!" Indeed, the day I paid hardly any money at all for Twisted Tunes Volumes 1 and 2 was a david banner day for laughter in the Mark Prindle household. "Finally!" I said to myself. "A 'Weird Al' Yankovic guy that's actually funny!" It took six further purchases to prove my hypothesis badly, badly flawed.
But only one experience with your asinine "Wriggly Coat" to leave me badly, badly clawed.
The funniness lies in the crudity of the lyrics and the way that many of the vocals actually sound like they're being performed by the REAL singers. Also, I appreciate how Bob parodies classic and modern rock songs rather than quickly-forgotten rap and pop hits of the day like Mr. Yankovic do. Thus, Hootie & The Blowfish's "I Only Wanna Be With You" becomes "I Only Got A Three-Inch Tool," a pitch-perfect Roger Daltrey impersonator bemoans his "Middle Age Waistline" ("I eat Mrs. Fields! I snack between meals!"), and Soundgarden's Chris Cornell becomes an angry father screaming at his "Asshole Son." Some of Bob's ideas are astonishingly clever (as in the Beatles send-up "Let me take you down to Yankee Stadium where/Strawberry fields/and makes drug deals...," or in the Beatles send-up "Free As A Turd," wherein the late John Lennon begs his ex-band members not to release his unfinished track -- complete with spoken fade-out: "This is way worse than being shot, I'll tell you that..."), and others are funny just because they're so juvenile and gross (particularly John Fogerty-alike's warning that "The Old Man Is On The Commode"). Have you ever laughed so hard? If not, try!
It's not all fucking classical music though. Some of it's terrible.
It's not all terrible though. Some of it's great!
Thematically, Bob's vocalists discuss such topical subjects as police brutality, unemployment, the plight of the urban ghetto, the struggles of the minimum wage worker, Madonna's pregnancy and the Hale-Bopp suicide cult, along with such timeless human concerns as intestinal gas and physical deformities ("The day he was born, the doctor slapped his mom -- Oooooo, what an ugly man he was!"). Most of the singers do a fairly good job of sounding like the originals, and only a few of the tracks suck so bad you wanna fuck 'em up the ass with the gigantic oversized dick you ripped off the gay porn star("Baby Madonna" is right up there). What do you want for nothing? A rubber biscuit of some sort?
Essentially, this is an album for "Weird Al" Yankovic fans who are ready for something a little more raucous. I highly recommend it to this tiny but growing audience, because these Twisted Tunes are as funny as almost anything Al has ever done, plus they gave me a great idea for a new pornography magazine called Pissed-in Poons. People are into guys relieving themselves into women's birth canals for 140 pages a month, right? I hope so because I already quit my job and put a down payment on a gigantic house that says "The Urine Vagina Mansion" on it.
So I'm in the office kitchen a few minutes ago and there's this new sign up over the sink that reads, "Please note: The sponge is to be used for washing dishes only." To which I shouted aghast, "Exactly how have people been USING this sponge!?" I mean, I enjoy contraception at work as much as the next guy, but w
But enough laughter. Godd didn't put us on this Earth to laugh. If Man were meant to laugh, he'd have been given a big hilarious sky with jocular birds flying around making fart noises. No, our true purpose in life is to stoically, heroically listen to novelty music. I recommend Bob Rivers' Twisted Tunes, Part II for this somber, studied endeavor. Especially the song about the terd!
Now that my Internet is back up, I've done a bit more research on Mr. Rivers and discovered that he has a morning show on KZOK 102.5 FM, a Seattle-based classic rock station. In his online bio, he claims that his five favorite bands are The Beatles, Alice in Chains, Lamb of God, Yes and the Singing Nun, but that last one may just be a hilarious joke such as those found on his CDs. The craziest thing is that his web site (www.bobrivers.com) features about 75 billion other 'Twisted Tunes' that aren't available on any of these CDs! How come we at home never got a chance to purchase "Bin Laden And The Jets," "By The Time I Get The Meat Axe," "Cheeseburger With Parasites," "Man Who Constantly Borrows," "Hark The Hair-Lipped Angels Sing" and/or "Dirty Deeds Done With Sheep"? And don't give me this "you can't fit 60 zillion songs on a CD" crap because Bob Rivers has been tossing out piddly little 35-minute CDs his entire career. Thanks for nothing, you grey-haired mongoose!
Now then, about his best CD to date: Twisted Tunes, Volume II is a 'gotta-purchase' for all fans of the music parody genre. Here are some bullet points in case you want to write a press release about it. Be sure and get your quote approved by KZOK management though.
- Hear 'Jim Morrison' croon, "Hello, I love you/Let's get tested for AIDS."
Hear all these things, and they will be heard by you. This is the nature of active vs. passive voice.
Other songs parodied include Sam Kinison's "Wild Thing," Creedence Clearwater Revival's "Heard It Through The Grapevine," Janis Joplin's "Me And Bobby McGee" and - in the CD's sole bum track - The Beatles' "Getting Better" (re-writ as "Getting Fatter," a collection of classic fat jokes unheard since "I'm A Weight Watcher," "The Most Fattening Time Of The Year," "Middle Age Waistline" and "Weird Al" Yankovic's "Fat").
I don't know how they make these songs sound so authentic. In some of them, it sounds like they're just singing over instrumental versions of the originals, but others are clearly newly-recorded versions. And the Xmas CDs feature all kinds of bells and strings and things. Are they just synthesizers? Or does Bob actually bring in orchestras and crap? And where do they find all these great singers? That's why I created this page - to answer all of these questions for you.
Five Christmas parodies, four rock parodies, two originals, one Xmas/rock parody, one show tune parody, one remix, and one skit.
Oh excuse me, I mean five SHITSmas parodies, four SCHLOCK parodies, two UNLISTENABLES, one SUCKIN/COCK parody, one BLOW tune parody, one PEEmix, and one SHIT. Heh heh. Yeah, that's good stuff.
Check out this track listing:
Is there anybody on Earth who honestly wants to listen to a load of shit like that? If so, let me know because I totally made it up. But that's all that Bob Rivers does too - just comes up with lame-o ideas in 20 seconds and hires a bunch of people to bring them to 'life' for him. Here, check out the ACTUAL track listing for this CD and let me know if it sounds like he put any more time into it than I put into mine:
- "The Twisted Chipmunk Song"
A few whimsical bits persist, such as the conversion of "Merry Christmas.... to you" to "Furry chipmunks.... screw you." And the subtle twist of "Good Vibrations"' show-stopping "AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!" into "AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAmen!" But otherwise, what are we looking at here? A "Don't Drink and Drive" PSA, a mean-spirited attack on homeless people disguised as a biting satire about holiday charity-givers, some orgasm noises, a great John Fogerty composition shat into a dumbassed Christian song ("Some day he'll rise again! And we'll visit him with three wise men!"), a funny rock and roll classic about wanting money turned into a pointless song about wanting...umm...Christmas money (and sung in an approximation of Mr. Mackey's voice for no discernable reason at all), and a bunch of other numbnutted nogoodnickery. Don't bother with it. Or as the Italians say, "Fuckedaboutit!"
It's still half-good though. It's just that I'm more than half-sick of talking about this half-wit. But don't worry! Next week I'm reviewing The Yardbirds! And their simple-to-navigate discography that makes every kind of perfect sense whatsoever!
After a 75-year career of reliably mediocre Christmas CDs, Robin Quivers finally hit roddy bottom with White Trash Christmas. Not a joke to be found, not a laugh to be heard, not a reason to exist. Just a whole bunch of characteristically uncharismatic boredom hole. Rivers is becoming more of a "Weird Al" Yankovic guy too, foregoing the usual classic rock parodies for hip-hop (Eminem, Afroman) and soul (Billy Jack). His habit of creating unfunny novelty songs out of pre-existing funny novelty songs continues with the exhaustingly pointless "Osama Got Run Over By A Reindeer," his new-found interest in crafting songs that give him a boner continues with the fratboyish "The Little Hooters Girl" ("Double-D fun/Look at them guns"), his long-held belief that a pop culture reference equals instant hilarity continues with the jokeless "Have Yourself An Ozzy Little Christmas," laugh-out-silent drug references continue with "I'll Be Stoned For Christmas" and "Be Claus I Got High," and he's even brought back the inscrutable "wimpyass 'rockin' version of a Christmas Carol" schtick with a godawful Green Day-style shitstorm salad called (tee hee) "NOT SO Silent Night." GET IT??? IT'S LIKE "SILENT NIGHT" BUT L
It's actually possible to enjoy the lead-off track "Aquaclaus," but be warned that if you also own The Jethro Tull Christmas Album, this song can lead to tremendous confusion among your family members. Also be warned that it's the only good song on the disc.
So that's all well and good, but what's a "2-grade album" without a bunch of obscene put-downs? So let's get to that portion now:
- "White Trash Christmas? More like BLIGHT shove it up my ASS Christmas!"
- "What's this 'Merry Christmas Allah' shit? Way to read your audience, Bob! They're into you for the SERIOUS songs!"
- "'What If Eminem Did Jingle Bells?' Well, he'd probably do it a hell of a lot funnier than YOU did, Bob!"
- "If you change the lyrics to a jokey song about getting high such that the song is now a jokey song about getting high AT CHRISTMAS, that's not a parody, goddammit! How many times do we have to go over this!? You're simply STEALING somebody else's joke and trying to make it fit into your dumbassed seasonal concept!"
Okay, I'm bored with that section. I just noticed that this CD's liner notes tell who sang each song and who all the musicians were. I wonder if the other CDs have that info? I probably should have checked before I sold them all on ebay. Looks like Spike O'Neill (one of the songwriters) did both the Jethro Tull voice and the Elmo & Patsy one, which is pretty interesting. Scott Burns does a hilarious vocal approach in "I'll Be Stoned For Christmas" too, though the lyrics unfortunately aren't funny at all. All in all, I don't have to wish these guys luck because they're already extremely successful with their radio show and everything. So I'd instead like to wish America's music parody fans good luck at finding somebody who doesn't SUCK ABSOLUTE SHIT-COVERED BALL ASS DICK at it.
Are there any good parody artists out there? You tell me. If so, I need 'em in my sizable discography collection!
Peace.
We own More Twisted Christmas and actually enjoy it. My kids think it is hilarious so whatever!
- Hear a star-faded 'John Lodge of The Moody Blues' whip out a depressing loungey "I'm Just A Singer In A Holiday Inn."
- Hear 'Sheryl Crow' or whoever hypothetically ask, "What If God Smoked Cannabis?"
- Hear an obvious Steve Miller parody called "Beat Up Old Jetliner."
- Hear the ridiculous yet surprisingly witty and sincere-sounding soul ballad "When A Man Loves A Chicken."
- Hear 'Paul Stanley' bemoan the aging process in "I Used To Rock 'n' Roll All Night" (with his hilarious request of the fans, "Will you drive us home if we get sleepy?")
- Hear fat jokes in "I'm A Weight Watcher."
- Hear 'Paul McCartney' ask, "Officer Mark Fuhrman - Where did that blood come from?"
- Hear 'Tom Petty' observe "Lately all the songs I write/are slow and on the mellow side/I used to stand on MTV/But now they bring a chair for me/So let me get a tube of ointment/And let me rub my aching joints..." before concluding, "This must be how it feels... to be oooold!"
- Hear 'Bob Seger' spew out two and a half minutes of poop jokes as he's workin' on a "Bowel Move."
- Hear 'Dexter Holland of The Offspring' get upset after he gets the "Wrong Foot Amputated."
- "All I Want For Christmas Is My Two Butt Cheeks"
- "Jingle Smells"
- "Santa Gets Stoned"
- "Stairway To Ho!Ho!Ho! Van"
- "Sweet Home Ala-Santa"
- "Adolf The Failed-Nosed Artist"
- "Secret Santa Blues"
- "These Pez Are Made For Stockings"
- "Good King 'Who's The Boss?'"
- "Rock You Like A Candy Cane"
- "Dying Of Cancer For The Holidays"
- "How Do You Solve A Problem Like Santa's Diarrhea?"
- "Happy Holi-Gays"
- "I Believe In Father's Business"
- "Ho!Ho!Ho! Vanmeister Dance Mix"
- "Chipmunks Roasting On An Open Fire"
- "The Angel"
- "Who Put The Stump (Up My Rump-A-Pump-A-Pump)?"
- "Decorations" (parody of "Good Vibrations")
- "Carol Of The Bartenders"
- "Christmas Party Song"
- "Christmas Money (That's What I Want)" CHRIST, BOB - THE SONG IS ALREADY ABOUT WANTING MONEY!!! DOES IT EVEN COUNT AS A 'PARODY' WHEN YOU JUST ADD THE WORD "CHRISTMAS" TO THE TITLE!?
- "Pokemon" (parody of "O Little Town Of Bethlehem." Though you wouldn't exactly know it by the title.)
- "Goin' Up To Bethlehem" (parody of CCR's "Up Around The Bend")
- "Homeless On The Holidays" HA HA! MAKING FUN OF HOMELESS PEOPLE! ISN'T IT HILARIOUS WHEN THEY WET THEIR PANTS?? HA HA! GREAT STUFF BOB! KEEP 'EM COMING!!!
- "He's So Jolly" (parody of "Hello Dolly")
- "Flu Ride"
- "Santa Claus Is Foolin' Around" (parody of Springsteen's "Santa Claus Is Coming To Town" - complete with female orgasm noises!)
- "Stumpmaster Remix" GREAT IDEA, BOB!!! IF THERE'S ONE THING A FAN OF NOVELTY MUSIC LOVES, IT'S A PIECE OF SHIT WITH NO JOKES IN IT!!!
Actually that's not true. He sucks now too.
Half-way through this section, I began to suspect this stuff actually existed, so I clicked to Amazon and, lo and behold, with 30-second clips in Living Nightmarevision, it does. And the few I heard sounded like crack Top 40 bands, probably enjoying the hell out of the session. I'm sure these things are funny heard on the radio in the car, especially flipping aimlessly through the dial ... but to sit through all those CDs, damn, Mark, you'll end up on a U.S. postage stamp someday for all your untiring, selfless work. Other parody artists? Don't neglect the greatest of 'em all - 101 Strings... their versions were out before the cadavers got cold.
I found some old reviews of Bob Rivers CDs thru Google. If you’re still at this email and looking for parody stuff, please check out my CD I Got Yule Babe at www.IGotYuleBabe.com or www.cdbaby.com/kopischke or on iTunes.
Good lord. "White Trash Christmas" doesn't even sound funny in the sad, painfully ironic sense. I read your review a number of times though and couldn't stop laughing. My new favorite phrase is "shitstorm salad." Nobody puts the words together like you, Mark. Never stop.
Put on your Laughter Suspenders and buy Bob Rivers CDs here!