MILT: "Doing!? I'm in Heaven! I just came from a used record store where I got a vinyl of the old Coasters song, 'Down in Mexico.' "
EDDIE (VO): "Oh, right...you're really into 50s pop, bubblegum and all that!"
MILT: "Bubblegum!? No way! No, I like the kind of thing blacks were doing in the 50s. You know, Chuck Berry, Bo Diddley, The Coasters, Screamin' Jay Hawkins...funny stuff like that."
EDDIE (VO): "How about Elvis? He was funny!"
MILT: "Yeah, he was a little funny. I like his song, 'Hard headed Woman.' That first line cracks me up: 'Hard headed Woman/ Head like a rock/ Makes a man go crazy/ All around the block.' No wait a minute, that's not it. Aw, I'd have to look it up."
EDDIE (VO): "What about The Beatles and the Stones? Mick Jagger had funny lips!"
MILT: "Weeeeell, funny lips can only take you so far. After the Beatles everything got too political, too...druggy. I don't like music that you have to get stoned to listen to."
EDDIE (VO): "Maybe you're on to something. There was a lot of funny music in the 50s and early sixties, then in the mid sixties it suddenly went away."
MILT: "Yeah, funny music like The Coasters', 'Smokey Joe's Cafe!' A customer comes into Smokey Joe's and Smokey's girl starts flirting with him. Smokey lays down the law...'Stop lookin' at my woman/You better eat up all your beans boy, and get on out!' Wow, there's so much gritty atmosphere and humor in a song like that."
EDDIE (VO): "What happened to funny music? Why did things change?"
MILT: "Interesting question! I remember reading something about it at the time."
MILT: "The radio stations got cold feet. Even though the funny records were selling well, they thought of those songs as one joke wonders. They thought the public would eventually get tired of them, and they were looking for an excuse to bail."
EDDIE (VO): "Holy Mackerel! That sounds plausible. Imagine a whole art form going down in flames because of the timidity of a few Nervous Nellies. "
MILT: "That's okay. I got my 45 of 'Down in Mexico,' so I'm happy!"