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Allan Sherman | |
|---|---|
 Sherman as a sheriff onThe Loner in 1965 | |
| Born | Allan Copelon (1924-11-30)November 30, 1924 |
| Died | November 20, 1973(1973-11-20) (aged 48) Los Angeles,California, U.S. |
| Resting place | Hillside Memorial Park Cemetery |
| Occupations |
|
| Years active | 1951–1973 |
| Spouse | |
| Children | 2 |
Allan Sherman (bornAllan Copelon[1] orAllan Gerald Copelon;[2] November 30, 1924 – November 20, 1973) was an American musician, comedian, and television producer who became known as a songparodist in the early 1960s. His first album,My Son, the Folk Singer (1962), became the fastest-selling record album up to that time.[3] His biggest hit was "Hello Muddah, Hello Fadduh", a comic song in which a boy describes his summer camp experiences to the tune ofPonchielli'sDance of the Hours.
Sherman was born on November 30, 1924, inChicago, to Percy Copelon and Rose Sherman.[1] Percy was an auto mechanic and race car driver fromBirmingham, Alabama who suffered from obesity (he weighed over 350 pounds) and died while attempting a 100-day diet.[4] Sherman's family wasJewish. His parents divorced when he was seven,[1] and he adopted his mother's maiden name. Because his parents frequently moved to new residences, he attended 21 public schools in Chicago,New York,Los Angeles, andMiami.[5] For his High School years, he attended Fairfax High School in Los Angeles where he graduated in 1941. He later attended theUniversity of Illinois, where he earned mostly "C" grades and contributed a humor column toThe Daily Illini, the college newspaper. He was expelled for breaking into theSigma Delta Tau sorority house with his girlfriend and future wife, Dolores "Dee" Chackes.[6]
Sherman devised a game show with comedy writer Howard Merrill, which he intended to callI Know a Secret.[6] Television producerMark Goodson adapted Sherman's idea intoI've Got a Secret, which ran onCBS from 1952 to 1967. Rather than pay him for the concept, Mark Goodson-Bill Todman Productions made Sherman the show's producer; Merrill was paid a royalty and withdrew from the project. "You couldn't help but be fond of Allan, as long as you didn't have to work with him," recalled Goodson-Todman executiveGil Fates. "Notice I saidwith him. He was always kind and understanding to those who workedfor him."[7] Sherman clashed with anyone who disagreed with his ideas or tried to restrain his creativity. As producer ofI've Got a Secret, which was broadcast live, he showed a fondness for large-scale stunts that teetered on the brink of disaster. He once released 100 rabbits onstage as anEaster surprise for the Madison SquareBoys Club, whose members were seated in the studio. The boys were invited to come up onstage to collect their prize. Although the resultant melee made a good story, it did not necessarily make for good television. Fates saw that hostGarry Moore, "who was out on stage trying to protect the bunnies as best he could, realized that the spot was beyond salvage. Most of the kids gave back the rabbits".[8]
In his autobiographyA Gift of Laughter, Sherman writes that he was fired fromI've Got a Secret in 1958, the night when guest starTony Curtis demonstrated childhood street games. First, Curtis had never heard of the games that Sherman wanted to stage, resulting in awkward reenactments. Then, according to Sherman,Henry Morgan was left short of scripted material by seven minutes,[6] and Morgan filled the time by berating Sherman on air.[6] However, the episode in question does not run short. Morgan ends it abruptly and says that they have run out of time.[9] "The spot was not only a fiasco but also a catastrophe," recalled Fates. "That show was Goodson's last straw and Allan's lastI've Got a Secret. Within hours, the reaction from the network and the sponsors was in, and Allan was out."[10] Sherman was replaced by associate producer Chester Feldman.
Sherman also produced a short-lived 1954 game showWhat's Going On?, which was technologically ambitious, with studio guests interacting with multiple live cameras in remote locations. In 1961, he produced a daytime game show for Al Singer Productions calledYour Surprise Package, which aired on CBS with hostGeorge Fenneman.[11]
In 1951, Sherman recorded a 78-rpm single with veteran singerSylvia Froos that contains "A Satchel and a Seck", parodying "A Bushel and a Peck" fromGuys and Dolls, coupled with "Jake's Song", parodying "Sam's Song", a contemporary hit forBing Crosby and his sonGary.[12] The single sold poorly and when Sherman wrote his autobiography, he did not mention it. Later, he found that the song parodies he performed to amuse his friends and family were taking on a life of their own. Sherman lived in theBrentwood section ofWest Los Angeles next door toHarpo Marx, who invited him to perform his song parodies at parties attended by Marx's show-biz friends. After one party,George Burns phoned an executive atWarner Bros. Records and persuaded him to sign Sherman to a contract. The result was anLP of these parodies,My Son, the Folk Singer, released in 1962. It sold over one million copies, and was awarded agold disc.[13] The album was very successful and was quickly followed byMy Son, the Celebrity.
Capitalizing on his success, in 1962Jubilee Records re-released Sherman's 1951 single on the albumMore Folk Songs by Allan Sherman and His Friends, which compiled material by variousBorscht Belt comedians such as Sylvia Froos,Fyvush Finkel and Lee Tully.
Sherman's first two LPs were mainly reworkings ofpublic domainfolk songs to infuse them with Jewish humor. His first minor hit was "Sarah Jackman" (pronounced "Jockman"), a takeoff of "Frère Jacques" in which he and a woman (Christine Nelson) exchange family gossip. The popularity of "Sarah Jackman" (as well as the albumMy Son, the Folk Singer) was enhanced after PresidentJohn F. Kennedy was overheard singing the song in the lobby of the Carlyle hotel.[14]: 13 By his peak withMy Son, the Nut in 1963, however, Sherman had broadened both his subject matter and his choice ofparody material and begun to appeal to a larger audience.
Sherman wrote his parody lyrics in collaboration withLou Busch. A few of the Sherman/Busch songs are completely original creations, featuring original music as well as lyrics, rather than new lyrics applied to an existing melody.
However, Sherman had trouble in getting permission to record for profit from some well-known composers and lyricists, who did not tolerate parodies or satires of their melodies and lyrics, includingIrving Berlin,Richard Rodgers,Ira Gershwin,Meredith Willson,Alan Jay Lerner, andFrederick Loewe, as well as the estates ofLorenz Hart,Oscar Hammerstein,Kurt Weill,George Gershwin andBertolt Brecht, which prevented him from releasing parodies or satires of their songs. In the late 1950s, Sherman was inspired by a recording of a nightclub musical show calledMy Fairfax Lady, a parody ofMy Fair Lady set in the Jewish section of Los Angeles that was performed atBilly Gray's Band Box. Sherman then wrote his own song parodies ofMy Fair Lady, which appeared as abootleg recording in 1964, and were officially released in 2005 onMy Son, the Box. Alan Jay Lerner did not approve of having the parody being performed; however, he reluctantly settled to allow the performances of "Fairfax Lady", on the strict conditions that the show could be allowed to be performed only inside the Fairfax Theater, without any touring company, and that the musical could not be videotaped or recorded for any album.
Although Sherman believed that all the songs parodied onMy Son, the Folk Singer were in thepublic domain, two of them, "Matilda" and "Water Boy"–parodied as "My Zelda" and "Seltzer Boy", respectively–were actually under copyright, and Sherman was sued for copyright infringement.[14]: 262 [15]
In 1963'sMy Son, the Nut, Sherman's pointed parodies of classical and popular tunes dealt withautomation in the workplace ("Automation", to the tune of "Fascination"),space travel ("Eight Foot Two, Solid Blue", to "Five Foot Two, Eyes of Blue"), summer camp ("Hello Muddah, Hello Fadduh", to the tune ofDance of the Hours byPonchielli), the exodus from the city to the suburbs ("Here's to the Crabgrass", to the tune of "English Country Garden"), and his own bulky physique ("Hail to Thee, Fat Person", which claims hisobesity was a public service similar to theMarshall Plan). Seven cartoon bears were printed on back of every album.[16]
One track fromMy Son, the Nut, a spoof ofsummer camp titled "Hello Muddah, Hello Fadduh", became a surprise novelty hit, reaching No. 2 on the nationalBillboard Hot 100 chart for three weeks in late summer 1963. The lyrics were sung to the tune of one segment ofPonchielli'sDance of the Hours. That December, Sherman's "The Twelve Gifts of Christmas" single appeared onBillboard's separate Christmas chart. Sherman had one other Top 40 hit, a 1965 take-off on thePetula Clark hit "Downtown" called "Crazy Downtown", which spent one week at #40. Two other Sherman singles charted in the lower regions of theBillboard 100: an updated "Hello Mudduh, Hello Fadduh" (#59 in 1964), and "The Drinking Man's Diet" (#98 in 1965). Sherman's "The End of a Symphony", spotlightingArthur Fiedler'sBoston Pops Orchestra, reached #113 on the "Bubbling Under" chart in 1964, but did not make the Hot 100.
The songs on Sherman's next albumMy Name Is Allan (1965) were thematically connected: except for a couple of original novelty songs with music by Sherman and Busch, all the songs on the album are parodies of songs that had won, or were nominated for, theAcademy Award for Best Song. They included "That Old Black Magic", "Secret Love", "The Continental", "Chim Chim Cher-ee" and "Call Me Irresponsible". The cover of the album bore a childhood photograph of Sherman. That, and the album's title, were references toBarbra Streisand's albumMy Name Is Barbra, released earlier that year, which featured a cover photograph of the singer as a young girl.
During his brief heyday, Sherman's parodies were so popular that he had at least one contemporary imitator:My Son the Copycat was an album of song parodies performed byStanley Ralph Ross, co-written by Ross andBob Arbogast. Lest there be any doubt of whom Ross is copying, his album's cover bears a crossed-out photo of Sherman. One of the songs on this album is a fat man's lament, "I'm Called Little Butterball", parodying "I'm Called Little Buttercup" fromGilbert and Sullivan'soperettaHMS Pinafore. Sherman, who was genuinely overweight unlike Ross, would later parody this same song as "Little Butterball" – with the same subject matter – on his albumAllan in Wonderland. Sherman also parodied Gilbert and Sullivan's "Titwillow" fromThe Mikado, in the song "The Bronx Bird-Watcher" (onMy Son, the Celebrity), as well asseveral other Gilbert and Sullivan songs.
In 1965, Sherman published an autobiography,A Gift of Laughter, and, for a short period at least, he was culturally ubiquitous. He sang on and guest-hostedThe Tonight Show, was involved in the production ofBill Cosby's first three albums, appeared in theMacy's Thanksgiving Day Parade, and sang "The Dropouts' March" on the March 6, 1964, edition of theNBC satirical programThat Was The Week That Was.
Also in 1964, Sherman narrated his own version ofProkofiev'sPeter and the Wolf in a live concert atTanglewood with theBoston Pops underArthur Fiedler. The concert, which was released byRCA Victor Red Seal as the albumPeter and the Commissar, also included "Variations on 'How Dry I Am'", with Sherman asconductor, and "The End of a Symphony". In "Variations", Fiedler was the guest soloist, providing solo hiccups. In 2004,Collector's Choice reissued the complete RCA Victor album on CD.[17]
Sherman's later albums grew more pointedly satirical and less light-hearted, skewering protesting students ("The Rebel"), consumer debt ("A Waste of Money", based on "A Taste of Honey"), and thegeneration gap ("Crazy Downtown" and "Pop Hatesthe Beatles"). It was for this reason that Ken Barnes, when attempting to analyze American music acts that were harmed by the British Invasion, surmised in 2021 that Sherman had been doomed to lose momentum anyway and could not blame the Invasion for his career decline[18] (even as "Crazy Downtown" was a top-40 hit for him).
Sherman was often tapped to produce specialty song parodies for corporations. An album of six paper-cup and vending machine related songs, titledMusic to Dispense With, was created for the Container Division of theScott Paper Company for distribution to its vendors and customers. It consisted of the tracks "Makin' Coffee" (a parody of "Makin' Whoopee"), "Vending Machines", "There Are Cups", "That's How the Change Is Made", "The Wonderful Tree in the Forest" and "Scott Cups".[19]
Sherman also created a group of eight "public education" radio spots for Encron carpet fibers, singing their praises to the tunes of old public-domain songs. EntitledAllan Sherman Pours It On for Carpets Made with Encron Polyester, it featured an introduction by Sherman and comprised the tracks "Encron Is a Brand New Fiber" (to the tune of the Michael Renzi-Jack Norworth-Nora Bayes hit "Shine On, Harvest Moon"), "Put Them All Together, They Spell Encron" (to the tune of Theodore Morse and E. Johnson Howard's "M-O-T-H-E-R"), "There's a Fiber Called Encron" (to the tune of William H. Hill's "There is a Tavern in the Town"), "Encron Alive, Alive-O" (to the tune of "Molly Malone"), "Encron's the Name", "Why They Call It Encron" (to the tune of "Let Me Call You Sweetheart"), "Encron, Encron" (to the tune of "Daisy Bell") and "Encron Is a Great New Fiber" (to the tune of "Take Me to the Fair").[20]
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Sherman's career success was short-lived: after peaking in 1963, his popularity declined rather quickly. After theassassination of John F. Kennedy, the public taste for Sherman's type of comedy lessened.[21][further explanation needed] Beginning in 1964, Sherman was among many American acts whose sales were affected badly by theBritish Invasion[citation needed] (which Sherman skewered in the song "Pop Hates the Beatles", a spoof of "Pop! Goes the Weasel").
By 1965, Sherman had released two albums that did not make the Top 50 and in 1966, Warner Bros. Records dropped him from the roster. His last album for WB,Togetherness, was released in 1967 to poor reviews and poor sales. All of his previous releases had been recorded in front of a live studio audience – or in the case ofLive, Hoping You Are the Same, recorded during a Las Vegas performance – butTogetherness was purely a studio recording, and the lack of an audience and their response affected the result, as did the nondescript backup singers and studio orchestra.
On November 13, 1965, Sherman made a rare primetime television acting appearance in "The Sheriff of Fetterman's Crossing," an episode ofRod Serling's short-lived Western seriesThe Loner (1965–1966).[22] Sherman played Walton Peterson Tetley, a localschnook who went off to war and rose to regiment cook before returning home a hero, thanks to tall tales and yarn-spinning. The town hails its conquering hero and Tetley is appointed sheriff. Series starLloyd Bridges as William Colton, a wandering Union veteran, comes to town and signs on to be Tetley's deputy, discovering quickly his boss' utter incompetence in the office.[23] Tetley receives a threatening note from a gunslinger challenging this purported hero to a gunfight when he arrives on the noon stage, at which point the story becomes a parody of iconic Western movieHigh Noon (1952). Colton sets to teaching the shivering-in-his-boots sheriff courage and gunmanship. Sherman's semi-serious and sympathetic performance was strong and his presence an affable one.[24]
In 1966, Sherman visited Australia. He did a television series in Melbourne, Victoria, for a live audience. During the performance, he sang a parody of "Molly Malone." It included a play on the word "but" (butt) which did not elicit a laugh. What Sherman did not know is that Australians use the word "bum" where Americans would say "butt" (although usage of the word "butt" has since become widespread in Australia). Otherwise, Sherman was well received by the audience. Afterward, he met with some of his fans and signed at least one autograph.
In 1969, Sherman wrote the book and lyrics – with music byAlbert Hague – forThe Fig Leaves Are Falling, a flopBroadway musical that ran only four performances, despite direction byGeorge Abbott and a cast that includedBarry Nelson,Dorothy Loudon, andDavid Cassidy.[25] In 1973, Sherman publishedThe Rape of the A*P*E*, which detailed his point of view on AmericanPuritanism and thesexual revolution.
In 1971, Sherman was the voice ofDr. Seuss'sThe Cat in the Hat for the animatedtelevision special. He reprised the role forDr. Seuss on the Loose, his last project before his death.
In his final years, Sherman's alcoholism and weight gain caused severe deterioration of his health; he later developeddiabetes andlung disease.[26] In 1966, his wife Dee filed for divorce[27] and received full custody of their son and daughter.[28]
Sherman lived on unemployment benefits for a time and moved into theMotion Picture & Television Country House and Hospital for a short time to lose weight.[26] He died while entertaining his friends during the night of November 20, 1973, at his home inLos Angeles, ten days shy of his 49th birthday. According to sheriff's officers, Sherman, who had been undergoing treatment foremphysema,asthma, andobesity, died ofrespiratory failure.[29] He is entombed inCulver City, California'sHillside Memorial Park Cemetery.[30]
Sherman was the inspiration for a new generation of developing parodists such as"Weird Al" Yankovic,[31] who pays homage to Sherman on the cover ofhis first LP.
Sherman's hit song "Hello Muddah, Hello Fadduh" has been translated into other languages. In one notable example, the Dutch–Swedish poetCornelis Vreeswijk translated the song loosely into Swedish as "Brev från kolonien" (Letter from Summer Camp), which reached fourth on the Swedish popular music chart Svensktoppen in the summer of 1965[32] and is still popular in Sweden today.[33]
ABest of Allan Sherman CD was released in 1990, and aboxed set of most of his songs was released in 2005 under the titleMy Son, the Box. In 1992 amusical revue of his songs titledHello Muddah, Hello Faddah ran for over a yearoff-off-Broadway; other productions ranOff-Broadway for four months in 2001 and toured in 2003.[34] A children's book based on the song "Hello Muddah, Hello Fadduh", with illustrations bySyd Hoff, was published in 2004.
On March 14, 2006,National Public Radio profiled Sherman onAll Things Considered.[35]
In 2010, eight of Allan Sherman'sWarner Records albums were individually released on CD:
Sherman's son Robert (not to be confused withothers of that name in the showbusiness industry) became agame show producer, producing for Mark Goodson during the 1970s and 1980s, includingPassword Plus,Blockbusters,Body Language andSuper Password.
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| Year | Title | Billboard 200 | Record Label |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1962 | My Son, the Folk Singer | 1 | Warner Bros. Records |
| 1963 | More Folk Songs by Allan Sherman and His Friends | Jubilee | |
| 1963 | My Son, the Celebrity | 1 | Warner Bros. Records |
| My Son, the Nut | 1 | Warner Bros. Records | |
| 1964 | Allan in Wonderland | 25 | Warner Bros. Records |
| Peter and the Commissar | 53 | RCA Victor | |
| For Swingin' Livers Only! | 25 | Warner Bros. Records | |
| 1965 | My Name Is Allan | 88 | Warner Bros. Records |
| 1966 | Allan Sherman: Live!!! (Hoping You Are the Same) | - | Warner Bros. Records |
| 1967 | Togetherness | - | Warner Bros. Records |
| 2014 | There Is Nothing Like a Lox: The Lost Song Parodies of Allan Sherman | - | Rockbeat Records / Smore |
| Year | Titles (A-side, B-side) Both sides from same album except where indicated | Chart positions | Album | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| US | AC | UK | |||
| 1963 | "Hello Muddah, Hello Fadduh! (A Letter From Camp)" b/w "Rat Fink" | 2 | — | 14 | My Son, The Nut |
| "The Twelve Gifts Of Christmas" b/w "(You Came A Long Way From St. Louis) You Went The Wrong Way, Old King Louie" (fromMy Son, The Nut) | 5 (Christmas charts) | — | — | For Swingin' Livers Only! | |
| 1964 | "My Son, The Vampire" b/w "I Can't Dance" (fromAllan In Wonderland) | — | — | — | Non-album track |
| "(Heart) Skin" b/w "The Drop-Outs March" | — | — | — | Allan In Wonderland | |
| "Hello Mudduh, Hello Fadduh! (A Letter From Camp)" (1964 version) b/w Original version of A-side (fromMy Son, The Nut) | 59 | 9 | — | Non-album track | |
| "The End Of A Symphony"—Part 1 b/w Part 2 With The Boston Pops Orchestra—Arthur Fiedler, conductor | 113 | — | — | Peter and The Commissar | |
| "Pop Hates The Beatles" b/w "Grow, Mrs. Goldfarb" Unreleased | — | — | — | For Swingin' Livers Only! | |
| 1965 | "Crazy Downtown" b/w "The Drop-Outs March" (fromAllan In Wonderland) | 40 | 6 | — | Non-album track |
| "The Drinking Man's Diet" b/w "The Laarge Daark Aardvark Song" | 98 | 21 | — | My Name Is Allan | |
| 1966 | "Odd Ball" b/w "His Own Little Island" | — | — | — | Non-album tracks |
| 1967 | "Westchester Hadassah" b/w "Strange Things In My Soup" | — | — | — | Togetherness |
| 1968 | "The Fig Leaves Are Falling" b/w "Juggling" | — | — | — | Non-album tracks |
Warner Brothers Records report that it is the fastest-selling album in history, having sold 575,000 in six weeks. With the Christmas season coming up, it might push over a million.
On November 25, 1949, the front page of theBirmingham Post's late edition announced, "Percy (Fatty) Coplon Dies on 93rd Day of Long Fast."
Unfortunately his domestic life of late has been none too good, and a divorce is in the offing.
Hillside Memorial Park
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