SPOOKYSONGS

The Mummy – Bob McFadden and Dor

Mummification has been a burial tradition for thousands of years. Human mummification as we know it (wrapped body, coffin, spooky curse) began roughly 5600 years ago. Ancient Egyptians saw mummification as a way to preserve the body so the person could live well in the afterlife. My favorite mummy fact is that they pulled the brain out through the nose with a giant hook.

Another true fact about mummies is they are very scary. Mostly because they are dead bodies. Especially resurrected mummies! The classic Universal “The Mummy” films are classics and set the basis for how the Western world views mummies – lumbering, confused, scary, always searching for some lost item.

Bob McFadden was born in East Liverpool, Ohio in 1923. He became a famous voice-actor. Some of his best known voices are Snarf on the Thundercats, Frankenberry, something called Cool McCool, and the “ring around the collar” bird. He also appeared on the Vaughn Meader comedy album “The First Family”, which won ALBUM OF THE YEAR in 1963. Thank God the Beatles came to save us.

In 1959, he recorded a monster song, as was the style at the time, called “The Mummy”. The song is about a mummy who is sad because every time he walks up to someone, the person gets scared and runs away! This poor mummy just can’t make any new friends. He also mentions he was born “1,959 years ago”, so, in the year 0, or about 2000 years after ancient Egypt.

Turns out he just wants to borrow some money to buy a copy of “Kookie, Kookie Lend Me Your Comb”, a 1959 smash for Ed “Kookie” Byrnes.

Ed “Kookie” Byrnes was most famous for his character on the early soap Sunset Strip. Byrnes spoke in “beatnik jive”, which the parents of the time just did not understand. He was basically The Fonz before The Fonz. Watch this video, it’s fantastic.

Anyways, Byrnes is always combing his hair, right? So he made a song with a girl asking to borrow his comb, and he speaks a bunch of jive and whatnot. It’s all very 1959. It’s funny to imagine parents at the time getting all bent out of shape over this hip youngster trying to destroy America with his lingo.

“Lend me your comb” was also parodied by Spike Jonez in another Spooky Song called “Spooky, Spooky Lend Me Your Tomb”. It’s a note-for-note copy, but with a “hilarious” Dracula-type doing the vocals.

The first time I ever heard any of this nonsense was in a 1992 episode of Married With Children called “My Dinner with Anthrax”, in which the kids are trying to win a house party hosted by thrash band Anthrax. Parents Al and Peg are scooted off to Florida, where Ed “Kookie” Byrnes plays the Bundy’s neighbor at a shady timeshare. Peg (played by Katey Sagal) LOVES Kookie Byrnes and is smitten. And for some odd reason at the end, Anthrax sings “Lend Me Your Comb” with Byrnes. This might be one of the all-time weirdest mashups of all time.

Random sidenote: Anthrax guitarist Scott Ian is married to Meat Loaf’s daughter. Katey Sagal, who played Peg on Married with Children, sang backup on Meat Loaf’s biggest album “Bat Out of Hell”. Time is a flat circle!

Ed “Kookie” Byrnes died in 2020 of just being old. And kooky.

But, we weren’t talking about that! We were talking about Bob McFadden’s “The Mummy”!

You fool!

Our Mummy hero meats a Beatnik who talks just like Kookie Byrnes who is unimpressed and not scared. He even calls the mummy “A mother”, which apparently was a sneaky way of saying the big f-dash-dash-dash word in 1959. He then sarcastically calls for help, and the song ends.

The song reached #39 on the Billboard. The album “Songs Our Mummy Taught Us” was a fun novelty, but didn’t set the world on fire. McFadden died in 2000 and is perhaps now a mummy. “Dor”, his co-songwriter was beatnik poet and songwriter Rod McKuen, who wrote a ton of songs for people. He did many films and musicals and died in 2015.

One more Married with Children connection! The Simpsons had a film-trailer parody for a movie called “Soccer Mummy”, starring Ed O’Neill, who plays Al Bundy on Married. It’s fantastic.