Thursday, December 21, 2006

Lickety Lick

You may not think you know who Boots Randolph is, but you do. He's an American saxophonist, born in 1926, who in 1961 made a 45 record that is deeply embedded in the psyche of all of us. To our benefit, I would add. It is "Yakety Sax," and you've heard it a thousand times. Basically, it makes anything funny. "Benny Hill" used it a lot, as have "South Park" and "The Simpsons". Even a pretty grim movie like "V for Vendetta" used it when the irreverant gay TV comic Gordon Dietrich (Stephen Fry) was mocking the all-powerful High Chancellor, though he got squashed like a bug for his trouble.

"Yakety Sax" is inherently funny. Other things are also inherently funny, one of the funniest being when you smear some peanut butter on the top of a dog's nose and watch him lick it off. Dogs adore peanut butter, but reaching the top of the nose requires pretty extreme tongue effort.

Put them together and the result is hilarious.

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