Posts Tagged ‘Thurl Ravenscroft’

Way Out Wednesday: “Children’s Treasury of Superman Musical Stories”

smmusicalstories frontHere’s a fun album from 1966 featuring songs sung about — and sometimes sung bySuperman and his DC Comics universe of characters. The original album features two songs each for Superman, gal pal Lois Lane, cub reporter Jimmy Olsen, extraterrestrial menace Mr. Mxyptlk, Superboy, and Superboy’s dog, Krypto. Here’s a few tracks to whet your appetite.

The first one is about “Superman,” so of course it has to talk about all the wonderful things he does in a wonderfully jazzy way.

Superman

Then there’s Lois Lane’s song “Busy Busy Busy,” where she sings about how she’s always hunting down the next big story. It sounds like a pretty good female-empowerment-type song until she says the biggest headline she’s after is becoming Superman’s wife!

Lois Lane, “Busy Busy Busy”

Since they did a song for Lois, they had to do a song for Jimmy Olsen too. This one isn’t sung by Jimmy, but by Lucy Lane, who either had an unrequited crush on Jimmy or was his girlfriend. I don’t remember which.

Jimmy Olsen

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Way Out Wednesday: “Mister Ed the Talking Horse: Straight from the Horse’s Mouth”

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Looking at this cover you’d think you’d hear stories featuring Alan Young as Wilbur Post and Allen “Rocky” Lane as Mister Ed. You’d be wrong though. There’s no Wilbur Post to be found, and the only Mister Ed to be heard is voiced (I’m pretty sure) by Thurl Ravenscroft.

We start out with the “Mister Ed” theme, sung in a sort of slow drawly way by Ed himself:

Mister Ed – Mister Ed Theme

The rest of the album is songs by anonymous singers while Mister Ed joins in occasionally and spouts out random facts about whatever subject the song is about. This one is called “Straight from the Horse’s Mouth” and he’s all over the map factwise:

Mister Ed – Straight From the Horse’s Mouth

Next is “Birds of a Feather” which is, as you might expect, about birds. Listen to factoids like why we don’t stuff Aztec Indians, and marvel at how Ed is able to slide some religion into the mix.

Mister Ed – Birds of a Feather

Finally, we have “The How Song,” which is another one where Ed displays his general knowledge. I like the way the singers sing the questions like, “How is chewing gum made? Hmmmmmmm?”

Mister Ed – The How Song

If you’d like to see how Mister Ed tackles such subjects as animals, weather, and hats, you can catch the whole album here!

(I apologize for this being another light week for Way Out Wednesday. It’s another busy week at school. And besides, you’re just here for the music anyway, aren’t you?)

Way Out Wednesday: “Songs That Tickle Your Funnybone”

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This is one of my favorite children’s albums I had growing up and, judging by the comments for this entry on my blog, it was a favorite for a lot of other people too. This album was a “one stop shop” for a lot of classic kids’ songs I learned and remember to this day. Let’s take a listen, shall we?

Our first song featured is the classic “Cindy.” All goes pretty normal on this one, until he sings about wanting to be an apple so Cindy will take a BITE of him!

Golden Singers – Cindy

Next we have “There’s a Hole.” Part of what makes this so much fun is that the song starts out fairly slow, but by the time you’re getting to the flea on the wing of the fly the parts are just shooting out left and right.

Golden Singers – There’s a Hole

Here’s a quickie from (I believe) Thurl Ravenscroft, probably best known in recent years as the voice of Tony the Tiger. (more…)