"Fish Heads" | |
---|---|
Single by Barnes & Barnes | |
from the album Voobaha | |
B-side | "High School Gym" |
Released | 1978 |
Label | Lumania Records |
Songwriter(s) | Barnes & Barnes |
Official audio | |
"Fish Heads" on YouTube |
"Fish Heads" is a novelty song by comedy rock duo Barnes & Barnes, released as a single in 1978 and later featured on their 1980 album Voobaha . [1] It is the most requested song on the Dr. Demento radio show, and a music video for the song made in 1980 was in regular rotation on MTV. [2] [3] The song was featured on Barnes & Barnes' 1982 Fish Heads (Greatest Hits) 12-inch on Rhino Records. [4]
The duo was formed in 1970 by actor Bill Mumy and Robert Haimer (March 2, 1954 – March 4, 2023) - who were high school classmates - originally as a private home recording project.
The lyrics are an absurdist celebration of fish heads, describing them in the high-pitched chorus as "roly poly" and delicious to eat. The verses describe various things they (mostly) cannot do such as play baseball, wear sweaters, play the drums, and drink cappuccino in Italian restaurants with oriental women.
Actor Bill Paxton, a filmmaker at the time, directed and appeared in the music video for the song, along with cinematographer Rocky Schenck and Robert Haimer's girlfriend at the time, Joan Farber, who designed the costume look. The video aired on NBC television on Saturday Night Live , on December 6, 1980, and the following week. Dr. Demento had a cameo as the bum.
In 1985, the video was incorporated into several episodes of the Nickelodeon sketch show Turkey Television , introducing the song to millions of children, who, at the time, did not have access to either MTV or late night television.
The song is featured in The Simpsons episode "Treehouse of Horror VII". Alan Arkin sings the song in the 1993 movie Indian Summer . In the 2017 television episode "Goodwill" of Halt and Catch Fire , Joe and Haley listen to the song while driving in Joe's car. [5] [6]
Beavis and Butt-Head is an American adult animated sitcom created by Mike Judge. The series follows Beavis and Butt-Head, both voiced by Judge, a pair of teenage slackers characterized by their apathy, lack of intelligence, lowbrow humor and love for hard rock and heavy metal. The original series juxtaposes slice-of-life short subjects—in which the teens embark on low-minded misadventures in their Texas town—with the pair watching and commenting on music videos.
Charles William Mumy Jr. is an American actor, writer, producer, and musician. He came to prominence in the 1960s as a child actor whose work included television appearances on Bewitched, I Dream of Jeannie, The Twilight Zone, Alfred Hitchcock Presents, and a role in the film Dear Brigitte, followed by a three-season role as Will Robinson in the 1960s sci-fi series Lost in Space. Mumy later appeared as lonely teenager Sterling North in the film Rascal (1969) and Teft in the film Bless the Beasts and Children (1971).
Barret Eugene Hansen, known professionally as Dr. Demento, is an American radio broadcaster and record collector specializing in novelty songs, comedy, and strange or unusual recordings dating from the early days of phonograph records to the present. Hansen created the Demento persona in 1970 while working at the Pasadena, California, station KPPC-FM. After he once played "Transfusion" by Nervous Norvus on the radio, DJ "The Obscene" Steven Clean said that Hansen had to be "demented" to play it; this event inspired his stage name. His weekly show went into syndication in 1974 and was syndicated by the Westwood One Radio Network from 1978 to 1992. Broadcast syndication of the show ended on June 6, 2010, but the show continues to be produced weekly in an online version.
Christopher Joseph Isaak is an American singer, songwriter, guitarist and occasional actor. Noted for his reverb-laden rockabilly revivalist style and wide vocal range, he is popularly known for his breakthrough hit and signature song "Wicked Game"; as well as international hits such as "Blue Hotel", "Baby Did a Bad Bad Thing", and "Somebody's Crying".
Patricia Mae Giraldo is an American singer and songwriter. In the United States, she has two multi-platinum albums, five platinum albums, and 15 US Billboard top 40 singles, while in Canada she had eight straight platinum albums, and she has sold over 36 million albums worldwide. She is also a four-time Grammy Award winner. She was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in November 2022.
Barnes & Barnes were an American musical duo, formed in Los Angeles in 1970. Most commonly associated with novelty music and comedy rock, their music also incorporated elements of new wave, synth-pop, and folk rock.
The Great White North is a Canadian comedy album by the fictional television characters Bob and Doug McKenzie, released in 1981 by Anthem Records (ANR-1-1036) and distributed in the United States by Mercury Records (SRM-1-4034). The title is a nickname for Canada, also used as the title of a Second City Television (SCTV) sketch featuring Bob and Doug. This album's release tied in with SCTV at the height of the characters' popularity, and a still from the show is on its cover. In its sleeve is a newspaper parody called The Daily Hoser.
Ray Erskine Parker Jr. is an American musician, singer, songwriter, and record producer. As a solo performer, he wrote and performed the theme song for the 1984 film Ghostbusters and also sounds from the animated series The Real Ghostbusters. Previously, Parker achieved a US top-5 hit in 1982 with "The Other Woman". Born and raised in Detroit, Parker also performed with his band, Raydio, and with Barry White in the Love Unlimited Orchestra.
Max was an Australian music channel formerly known as musicMAX prior to 14 March 2004, available on Foxtel, Austar and Optus Television. The distinctive MAX logo was designed by Australian designer director, Domenico Bartolo of 21–19.
"Yoda" is a song by "Weird Al" Yankovic from his third album, Dare to Be Stupid (1985). It is a parody of the song "Lola" by the Kinks. Inspired by the events of the movie The Empire Strikes Back, the song is told from the point of view of Jedi-in-training Luke Skywalker and concerns his dealings with Master Yoda on the planet Dagobah. The song was initially written and recorded in 1980, during the original release of The Empire Strikes Back and achieved success on The Dr. Demento Show; however, securing permission from both Star Wars creator George Lucas and "Lola" songwriter Ray Davies delayed the physical release of the song for about five years.
"The Salmon Dance" is a song by English electronic music duo the Chemical Brothers and is the seventh track on their 2007 studio album We Are the Night. It features vocals by Fatlip and was released as the second single from the album on 10 September 2007.
"Institutionalized" is the debut and only single released in 1983 from the eponymic debut album by American hardcore punk/crossover thrash band Suicidal Tendencies. It is one of the band's most popular songs and has remained a live staple since it was first played in 1982. The song was re-recorded for the band's 1993 album Still Cyco After All These Years; this version was nominated for the Grammy for Best Metal Performance in 1994, but lost to Ozzy Osbourne's live version of "I Don't Want to Change the World".
Voobaha is the debut album by novelty rock group Barnes & Barnes. It was originally released in 1980 by Rhino Records, reissued in 1996 by Oglio Records, and reissued again in 2006 by Collector's Choice. Its title means "greetings" in the band's artificial language of Lumanian.
"Nothin' But a Good Time" the first single from the hard rock/glam metal group Poison's second studio album Open Up and Say... Ahh!, with the band releasing that album in May 1988. B-sides "Livin' for the Minute" and "Look But You Can't Touch" were included in the single's release.
Alfred Matthew "Weird Al" Yankovic is an American comedy musician, writer, and actor. He is best known for writing and performing comedy songs that often parody specific songs by contemporary musicians. He also performs original songs that are style pastiches of the work of other acts, as well as polka medleys of several popular songs, most of which feature his trademark accordion.
"What a Catch, Donnie" is Fall Out Boy's second digital download single and third radio single from their fourth studio album Folie à Deux (2008). It was first released as part of the buildup to the new album on iTunes on October 14, 2008, and charted on the US and Canadian singles charts. The track features numerous musicians performing cameo appearances in the song, singing lines from past Fall Out Boy songs. Bassist and lyricist Pete Wentz has said that he wrote the song to remind himself of vocalist and guitarist Patrick Stump. Fall Out Boy played the song live on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon.
"Pac-Man Fever" is a 1981 novelty song by Buckner & Garcia. Capitalizing on the video game craze of the early 1980s, the song, referencing the arcade game Pac-Man, peaked at number 9 on the Billboard Hot 100 in the United States in March 1982.
Halt and Catch Fire is an American period drama television series created by Christopher Cantwell and Christopher C. Rogers. It aired on the cable network AMC in the United States from June 1, 2014, to October 14, 2017, spanning four seasons and 40 episodes. It depicts a fictionalized insider's view of the personal computer revolution of the 1980s and the early days of the World Wide Web in the early 1990s. The show's title refers to Halt and Catch Fire (HCF), an idiom for computer machine code instructions whose execution would cause the computer's central processing unit to cease meaningful operation.
Bonnie Gordon is an American actress, nerd/parody musician, and professional TTRPG player based in Los Angeles, California. As an actress, she is the voice of the Ship's Computer on the Paramount+ animated series Star Trek: Prodigy, and has also done voice work for Cartoon Network's Mighty Magiswords as well as various anime and video games. She is half of the comedy music duo Library Bards, and has appeared on the reality game shows The Quest and Celebrity Name Game.