The Smiley Smile Message Board

anyone got the skinny on The Pickle Brothers' two tunes, Ode To Betty Joe and It's Time?  heard them recently on a you-know-what, and a cursory sweep of the net doesn't reveal much, except that TPBs were a comedy act that opened for the BBs.  i'd like to know about It's Time in particular - who wrote it, etc., and what it's doing on a BB you-know-what.

The Pickle Brothers were originally called The Uncalled For Three and began opening for the BBs in 1966 and continued to appear with them off and on till 1969. The group was very popular for awhile and appeared on Ed Sullivan and other shows. In the Summer of 1967 they were signed by Brother Records and a session was produced by Mike for them (probably in Sept 67).  I assume that as problems mounted for the BBs in 1967-68 they became too consumed with their own matters to be bothered with The Pickle Brothers,

Thanks for the info.  Unlike most, I really enjoy those two Pickle Brothers songs.  I'm sure I'll get crucified for saying this, but "It's Time" sounds a bit like the old VU to these ears.  :3d

thanks, ian.

one thing i'm dead keen to know is (since i've only heard the session tapes) the answer to this embarrassingly obvious question: were these tunes ever released?

ps. 'the uncalled for three' is a sublime name.
pps. mike love produced the session?  am i high?

I've been looking for any photographs (or video) of the trio online but couldn't come up with anything. Does anyone have any material?




P.S. Sorry for bumping such an old thread, but I figured it would be dumb to open a new one when there could be a 'compact' thread to collect questions about musical cucumbers.

Oh wow, I wondered about these songs. I thought they might have been early Redwood recordings and they were just being silly. But cool to here what those songs really were.

Never officially released.

And have a read of Stephen W. Desper's great posts about the Manson sessions. The BBs would bring in bands for Desper to record a demo for Brother Records. And i imagine a similar thing happened here. So I'd guess Mike didn't sit behind the board, pushing the faders and ordering the boys to syncopate, rather that he'd arranged their studio time with SWD.

It was yet another part of the plans for Brother Records as it was being set up, to allow band members to bring in and work with outside artists with an eye toward releasing those records under the Brother name. Basically the template that Apple records would follow a year later, with better initial results in that Apple actually released and had hits with several of their outside artists like Mary Hopkin, The Iveys/Badfinger, Jackie Lomax, James Taylor, etc.

This was mentioned more in depth this past week in another thread too. Brother was put on hold - but groups like this and Redwood show that the plan was at least actively in motion to sign and develop outside artists.

Now the big question is this:

Was there an infamous Pickle Brothers studio session we haven't heard about, where Brian and Dennis crashed a session Mike was working with them, pulled Mike aside, and reduced him to tears after hectoring him about working with outsiders when a new Beach Boys album needed to be worked on post-haste? Was there a report of a Pickle Brother watching helplessly from the control room as Dennis wagged a finger at Mike and seemed to be saying "these songs belong with US, who are these outsiders, Mike?"

Then Mike came back in to break the news, head hanging low with a look of defeat in both his eyes and in his stance, and said in a soft voice trembling with emotion, "My brothers Pickle, I can't work with you anymore. The guys won't let me do it. I'm leaving the producer's chair and going back to the tambourine, that's what they want..." .

 :lol

It would be interesting to know what real and imagined circumstances put a stop to the other's plans and projects for the record label. I'm still guessing it was the label's inability to operate as a label for even the BBs themselves at the time. Whatever that was.

I'm thinking of merging this with the other thread somehow, it's getting into the same questions and answers we had happening last week about Brother's "hiatus" after late '67.

Or not.

Borrowing from that other discussion, and taking a cue from what Nick Grillo has said, 1968 into 1969 was all but disastrous for the Beach Boys and for Brother in general, and the band was bordering on bankruptcy at the same time they were getting hammered by their label Capitol and were not selling tickets or records as they had when they made all these plans.

The Maharishi tour was a financial disaster and an embarrassment that cost at least half-a-million of the band's money with no return on the investment. Mike was also looking for money to finance a Maharishi film, and who knows what else may have been actually spent after spending that time in India. Brian was said to be out of commission entirely at some points in 1968. Carl's draft and legal troubles were still a factor. Dennis was losing tens of thousands of his money to Manson and the girls who were leeching off of him and taking his stuff. There was a professional studio that needed to be paid for after outfitting it with high-end professional equipment and construction.

Not much left in the tank to develop new or unknown artists. Maybe in light of all this, having it revert to the Capitol label with their bigger distribution and marketing resources rather than go all-out Brother Records was the better financial move at that time. Who knows.

So, other than Brian and Mike( the two that could shed the most light here) who is still around that could possibly share some knowledge into the situation?

Far and away the main guy would be Nick Grillo, as he was the go-to guy in nearly all of these financial and legal matters acting as manager, with even more firsthand involvement than Brian or Mike. According to what Cam said, when he was contacted some time ago Grillo referred to his commentary in the "Heroes And Villains" book as the way it all went down.

1968 would already be after Redwood and Pickle Bros and the BBs'  inability to operate as a label for even their own records.

Didn't the Maharishi tour have a promoter? I tried to interview him a long time ago and he was willing but wanted to be paid which I wasn't willing to do. His name is in Leafs book. If he was the promoter wouldn't the Boys have gotten paid and the promoter stood the losses?

I wonder if it wasn't the MLK canceled tour they took a hit on?

Pages 196-197-198 here:

http://books.google.com/books?id=spwdCTYbJP4C&q=grillo#v=snippet&q=grillo&f=false (http://books.google.com/books?id=spwdCTYbJP4C&q=grillo#v=snippet&q=grillo&f=false)

The April 1968 tour was a bust - due to MLK's assassination and fans not willing (or able under the laws put into place in certain areas the band was booked) to go to the venues to see it. So that got canceled. The BB's worked that tour after getting a loan-advance to finance it. That was disaster #1. Grillo's words" "a fucking nightmare".

The May 1968 Maharishi tour was according to Grillo supposed to be the "remedy" for the disaster of the April tour being canceled. Grillo called it "another disaster". Al Jardine had the famous quote about the only people who would make money from it being the florists. The Maharishi was laughing all the time, according to Dick Duryea he always got his money. Laughing all the way to the bank, perhaps? It says Mike was told no one would care about the Maharishi, they turned out to be right.

And it says the tour cost half a million. Add that to the loss of the money they were loaned by Joe Lipsher to self-promote the April tour which got canceled, those two months' touring losses alone equaled a heaping pile of money.

The Maharishi got his fresh flowers, fresh fruit, catered macrobiotic meals or whatever the heck else he was demanding on the road, and got to fly in a private chartered jet. No wonder he was giggling all the time.  :)

 

Picking up this topic because it seemed there was interest in the Pickle Brothers from the Redwood discussion, and also some questions about them in this thread. I'll add to the info that has already been posted.

The Pickle Brothers, formerly the Uncalled-For Three (Michael, Ron, and Peter), had met in college and formed a comedy act. One of them was the nephew of a legendary Hollywood figure named Abe Lastfogel, who had run the William Morris Agency. Keep that in mind for later. Another "Brother" was from Philly, and went on to join the comedy troupe the Ace Trucking Company in the 70's. One of the Brothers' actual brother was the subject of a 1970's Martin Scorcese documentary called "American Boy: A Profile Of Steven", and had worked on the touring crew for Neil Diamond among other interactions he had with various entertainers, as outlined in that film.

According to one source, The Uncalled-for Three were playing the coffeehouse and comedy circuits in New York City, specifically at venues like the Bitter End in Greenwich Village and the Improvisation on W. 44th Street. A *very* interesting side note which needs further confirmation is that the trio was once called "The Uncalled-for Five", before two of the members left the group, and one of those who had left was actress Madeleine Kahn! So the "Three", if that is true, was originally "Five" at one point in the 60's.

Back to the Pickle Brothers history: Assuming the saying "it's not what you know, it's who you know" is true in Hollywood, the Brothers had one of the most influential power brokers as a member's uncle. Whether or not some pull or some influence was exerted to get certain gigs and appearances is speculation.

But consider The Beach Boys had been represented by William Morris Agency from early in their career, after Morris Agency rep Marshall Berle (nephew of Milton Berle) had approached  Murry and Audree at an event, and soon signed on to represent them through the agency. Another Morris agent named Ira Okun also took the Beach Boys as clients, and got them better pay and better bookings as a result.

Recall that several William Morris Agency employees have played significant roles in the BB's history, too.

The confusion I found is in some of the timeline - One source suggested they were The Uncalled-For Three until they got offered to shoot a pilot for a TV show to capitalize on The Monkees, which would be written by Monkees screenwriting team Gerald Gardner and Dee Caruso. The show was going to feature the trio reenacting (if not replicating verbatim) old Marx Brothers skits and routines, and again a source suggested the trio's name "The Pickle Brothers" was a direct reference to the Marx Brothers, and was done for that TV pilot project.

The Pickle Brothers pilot was rejected, and nothing developed beyond that stage.

The trio did appear on Ed Sullivan's show, specifically one episode in May 1967. It was described as a "manic" comedy routine, and the episode itself is available for licensing but has not been released publicly as other Sullivan archives have been.

Then enter the Beach Boys, specifically Mike Love.

The Pickle Brothers were indeed signed by Mike to be Brother Records artists, and Mike produced two studio recordings for them. For those who have not heard them, the titles were "Ode To Betty Jo" and "It's Time", which had been slated earlier in the session as "Tired Of Livin". Bruce Johnston plays keyboards on the latter, and Mike was in the producer's role, in the control room offering comments and directions on the talkback, for the session. "Ode To Betty Jo" is a musical send-up of the then-current August 1967 Bobbie Gentry single "Ode To Billie Joe", and "It's Time - Tired Of Livin"...hard to describe other than an attempt at musical comedy, incorporating "Old Man River", a time-check announcement, and the usual band-vocal sounds and what sounds like Mike himself on bass vocals. At various points Mike from the control room calls out to Bruce, Peter, and Ron during the sessions.

Some selected lyrics from those tracks:
"I get high on banana pie, Mom they call me mellow yellow
Well I hate everything mercenary, I hate Peter, Paul, and Mary
I hate my mom and I hate my dad, and they hate me 'cause I smell so bad
And I hate everything that comes along, I even hate this stupid song."

From "Betty Jo":
"She was watchin' TV heard some news 'bout Flatbush Ridge,
Today Betty Jo Wholesome (?) jumped off the Brooklyn Bridge.
My old man told mama as he passed around the frozen peas,
Betty Jo was a jerk, pass the frozen TV dinners please"


The Pickle Brothers did indeed play on concert tours with the Beach Boys, including the "Led In Hawaii" shows, August '67 (sharing the bill with Bobbie Gentry), and in the fall '67 tour with the Buffalo Springfield, Strawberry Alarm Clock, and Philly's Soul Survivors. More specifics can be found in BB's books, obviously.

According to sources, audience members, and band members from these tours, the Pickle Brothers either opened the shows as a warm-up, as a full-on opening act for the bands, or what seems most likely is they would come on stage in between the bands' performances to fill time as the equipment was being changed and set up.

There was that direct connection to the Beach Boys which may have led Mike to sign them to Brother and want to produce songs for them to release on the new label. There was also the William Morris Agency connection, again the one member of the trio's uncle was a major force in Hollywood, had the Beach Boys on the William Morris Agency's client list...pure speculation if that had anything or nothing to do with them getting the recording sessions and signing through Mike and the touring position with the BB's.

So what exactly was their act? Apart from the two songs recorded for Brother, there is little or nothing I've found available for film, audio, or video of them in live performance. The Sullivan show again does exist, but it's in the vaults and not available for public viewing. There was a report of them appearing on The Tonight Show, when that was still based in NYC and ran 90 minutes each night, but as of yet I've found no record of them appearing on a specific date, and as the bulk of Carson's 60's NYC show tapes are gone forever, it may be impossible to track down. Perhaps another collector here could fill in any appearances they may have made, if they did other TV shows in 67-68 beyond Sullivan and Tonight.

Consider again I have seen the term "manic" in several descriptions of their stage act, and also reports of the type of jokes and skits they would perform. One came from an audience member who reported some of their jokes when describing their routine in a paper he wrote about comedy from that time:

"What is yellow and goes 'crick, crick'? A ballpoint banana."

A skit where one member playing Eve talks to another member playing a snake, and when offered an apple "Eve" tells the snake "Look, I don't know you from Adam."

A skit where a member wearing a cape plays "Count Dracula" and says his job is "a mouth and throat specialist", and among the bits is one where Dracula is talking to a man, the man cuts his finger, Dracula sucks the man's finger, and says "mmmmm, 1941. Not a bad year"

A skit only listed as the "Ratman skit" which could have been a parody of Batman or something entirely different, also an impression of a mobster/gangster character....

Add to that reports of members banging each other over the head, doing manic physical comedy, playing up old Three Stooges and Marx Brothers routines...having not seen them, I think you get the general idea of their act.

Again according to several sources, the trio parted ways for good sometime in 1968.

So onto the opinion section. What got them into the position of recording sessions for the new Brother label? Was the thought that the sessions would produce a single which would sell and make the charts for Brother? What did they do on stage on these Beach Boys shows and tours? What did they do on TV appearances, what did the failed Pickle Brothers TV pilot look like?

Just on the surface, and with very little to go on, the type of comedy they were going for can at least be suggested through the examples and reports (and those recordings). In my opinion only, based on that, the comedy just wasn't there, it just didn't click or seem like laugh-out-loud material, whether it was the musical comedy and the song parodies, the physical Marx/Stooges routines, or the one-liners and skits as reported. But anyway.

It would be great if there are fans who actually saw the Pickle Brothers perform during any of these Beach Boys shows where they were on the bill, specifically 1967-68 tour dates. What was it all about? What did they do? Were they funny? Etc.

Michael Mislove from The Pickle Brothers at far left, in the purple shirt and vest, in this vintage clip from the Ace Trucking Company:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BSWiIzf8sKI

Grillo was misremembering about the first tour of 1968. It wasn't a bust, the band played all but a handful of the scheduled dates (check it out on 10452). It was the Maharishi tour that was a complete disaster.

Gee....  

From TV.com here's the Pickle Brothers list of appearances:  

Playboy After Dark
 Themselves
S 1: Ep 7 Bob Newhart; Bill Cosby; O.C. Smith; Pickle Brothers
9/9/68


The Joey Bishop Show
 Themselves
S 3: Ep 5 September 6, 1968
9/6/68


The Mike Douglas Show
 Themselves
S 7: Ep 133 March 6, 1968
3/6/68


The Ed Sullivan Show
 Themselves
S 20: Ep 20 January 21, 1968: Johnny Mathis, Melvyn Douglas, Pert Kelton, John Byner
1/21/68

 S 19: Ep 36 May 28, 1967: The Temptations, Robert Goulet, Jane Morgan, Pickle Brothers
5/28/67    ( They performed a Dracula sketch)


The Merv Griffin Show
 Themselves
S 5: Ep 88 January 3, 1968
1/3/68

From BFI Film Forever (  http://explore.bfi.org.uk/4ce2b8192ad09 ) here's the character list for the pilot for their show(1967 Four Star Television production, Directed by William Friedkin with music by Quuincy Jones):  


Baxter Pickle   Ron Prince
Buddy Pickle   Michael Mislove
Bobo Pickle   Peter Lee
Miss Boom Boom  Maureen Arthur
Mrs DeWitt  Carol Veazie
Tweed   George Neise
Falstaff   Louis Quinn
the princess   Liliane Montevecchi

Here's a small review from Billboard, 1965, when the Uncalled For 3 opened a show for Gale Garnett:  http://tinyurl.com/kmq5gr6

Here's a listing for two bits the Uncalled For 3 performed with ( Host) John Davidson on an August 1966 Kraft Summer Music Hall program:  
  http://www.historicfilms.com/tapes/20255    ( not available for viewing online)  not sure if it's August 15th or 22nd as they were on both.  
If you sign up for a PRO account at this site, you can download 60 minutes of low-res viewings for $100

So, Guitarfool, Maybe you should contact Micheal Mislove ( he's on Facebook) since you're bound to have good rapport, since he was born in Philadelphia

Ron Prince is most likely still living in Texas, where I found and spoke to him some years ago (I'm a lousy interviewer and don't remember a thing we talked about; tho perhaps Ian saved the emails where I think I told him about it)   Maybe you want to track him and talk?  and who wants to find Peter Lee?

The Paley Center has a copy of the pilot in their collection available for screening, RUNNING TIME: 0:21:26.

The Maharishi tour was a complete disaster for sure, as mentioned. But how was the attendance and how were the numbers at the shows played overall in April 1968, on the tour before Maharishi in May? Several sources have them listed as getting a poor turnout, is that incorrect? Are they taking too much liberty by citing the shows canceled in the immediate week or so after the assassination to suggest the whole tour was poorly attended?

I'm not really the one to ask to track anyone down from the Pickle Brothers at this point, even Michael from Philly! If any of the info posted here sparks an interest for anyone else to do so, I say go for it! Get some good info, possibly, for anyone interested or so inclined to track someone down.   :)

Have you seen any of the TV.com listings on video? When I searched for anything available, I came up empty despite all of the listings you posted, I was more curious to see or hear an actual clip of them in performance. So there's a copy of the pilot at the Paley Center, that's cool. Anyone seen it?

That's the issue I encountered as well, despite all of the listings there isn't much publicly available to view, short of licensing a clip through a rights agency or vault, paying a hundred bucks to watch an hour-long video with John Davidson, or booking a trip to visit the Paley Center to watch the pilot. There isn't much available "on demand" to see or hear otherwise, unless there are bootlegs of those TV episodes. Bishop's ABC archives are lost like Carson's, for the most part. Douglas and Griffin license available episodes, but there are gaps in their 60's archives due to similar lost reels.

And bgas, I wanted to thank you for posting the broadcast dates and TV show info. I mentioned if anyone might be able to fill in the info on other TV or film appearances and you delivered the goods! Very cool. If those emails ever turn up or if you find any notes from your conversation that you mentioned, it would be cool to read, for sure.

  If anyone would have more info on attendance, I'd think it would have to be Ian( chime in here, please! ) . I notice that in his and Jon's book he quotes attendance for 4 shows and each was about 5000; whether that's good, or bad, I don't really know

OK ; I saw them open up for The Beach Boys, Buffalo Springfield, Strawberry Alarm Clock and Sole Survivors at the Westchester County Civic Center in NY , November 1967, right around Thanksgiving. The night was most memorable as the Boys played a brand new , unreleased song, "Darlin' , and it was fabulous. But ...the Pickle Brothers....There are no adjectives that describe how awful they were; there wasnt a laugh in their skit , at least that I can remember. They did the takeoff on the Bobbi Gentry song , changing to to someone jumping off the Brooklyn Bridge, definitely did that banana joke; we New Yorker's are not as good as Philly fans when it comes to heckling and booing , but I would say we are at least in the conversation. The audience gave up on the Pickle Brothers about two minutes into their act ; "get the f.ck off" and "you guys suck" were some of the nicer comments ; the guy behind me yelled out " hey I didn't come here to listen to this sh*t , bring out the f..king Beach Boys"....that's when I started laughing. It went all downhill from there; everyone yelling and booing until they went off ...then there was a huge ovation.  I remember saying to one of my friends " I wonder who the f...king moron was who decided it was a good idea to have these guys open up".

For the record , The Beach Boys were great. 

:lol

I always thought the 'Pickle Brothers' sounded like the name of a bad porn flick

Thanks for that, Ray! Hilarious. Sounds like The Pickle Brothers didn't win over the New York crowd that night. Which is odd, since New York was their home base. Interesting. Also, how cool is it to have heard Darlin before it was released! What a show, at least it sounds like the hecklers provided some of the comedy for the intermissions when the Pickle Brothers did not.  ;D

November 1967, Buffalo Springfield, Strawberry Alarm Clock, early Philly soul with the Soul Survivors (Expressway To Your Heart is a killer record, I don't think I've ever heard it played live from that era), what a bill. This poster from that run of shows has turned up online:

(http://i115.photobucket.com/albums/n295/guitarfool2002/picklebrothersposter_zps4c4ae85c.jpg)

"Wow, I've been to parties where they played records by the Strawberry Alarm Clock, but never one where the Strawberry Alarm Clock are actually playing!" - The Best Movie Ever Made

Love the Pickle Brothers reminiscence... wow. Now I want a Drew Friedman illustration of them.

Has anyone else on the board been to a show from 67-68 where the Pickle Brothers were on the bill with the Beach Boys? I'd love to hear more stories.

I so WISH Nick Grillo would reply here.  He used to tell the disaster story about the MLK and Maharishi tours and leave everyone in tears, they were laughing so hard.  The guy had a famous temper, and he was funny as hell.  He included me (when I was sorting through 6 years of fan mail in the back room at Ivar) when he took the staff out to the Brown Derby (the one around the corner on Vine) and he was very gracious and entertaining.  THAT is a man who could tell some great stories, and tell them well.

Nice!  :)  I wish he'd chime in, too! That would be great. I was just talking about the Brown Derby this week, talking about my dad who would go there in the 40's when he was in the Navy.

Don't you wish someone had recorded those conversations?  :)

I nearly passed out when I heard Darlin' ; it was great; Carl was wailing. The radio station sponsor in NY was WMCA ; I think the DJ that introduced the Boys was Dan Daniel ; if I remember.  The Pickle Bros ; I can't recall one funny line, or joke or anything other than they sucked. I know we snuck in several cans of Schaeffer half quarts each , into the venue, so under those conditions the PB should have been funny . Even after 5 half quarts of Schaeffer, they sucked; I think I said in an earlier thread, the maharishi would have been a funnier opening act.

The "MLK" tour had 31 shows scheduled: five were cancelled, three were rescheduled and the remaining 23 went ahead as planned. Of the Maharishi tour's 29 shows, all but five were scrapped.

To hear Carl wailing on a then-unreleased song which was that good...in 1967...that's the good stuff, right there. Carl sang the sh*t out of that song, it actually became one of my favorite performances of his over the years.

And I'd say it speaks to the level of comedy that night when even after pounding the Schaeffers the routine still laid an egg! At least it was the November chilly season in New York, you could stash the cans inside winter coats and the like. Harder to sneak those things in during the summer months.  ;D

Seeing the Buffalo Springfield in Nov '67 is pretty cool too, they had just released the album with Bluebird and Rock And Roll Woman a month earlier, and this was both when Neil Young was prone to having seizures on stage during some of the intense songs like Mr. Soul where he'd have to hand off his Gretsch guitar before he collapsed (wow...), and also when Bruce Palmer had come back more cosmic and trippy than before. I've heard he took to the stage wearing a beret and a full-length monk's robe at this time.  :-D

And somehow the Pickle Brothers were supposed to fit into all of this?

For a little background...
here (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cZQSvQLbNlQ) are (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fQDPKAqlCAA) the Pickle Brothers (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TYKi_cd5UIU).

Exhibit "A"  !!!

The prosecution rests

 :lol  These might help.

(http://i.ebayimg.com/00/$%28KGrHqUOKn!E1S%29vR130BNiqC87-2!~~_35.JPG)

Ugh.

(http://gifs.gifme.io/i/bda21cc309.gif)

brilliant !!

I couldn't get through the whole song. Ouch.

This is the first time I heard this band. I muted the song after 20 seconds.

Is this band big in any specific demographic?

This isn't really a poster, per se, it's a full page ad  from Billboard; tho there are a lot of sellers that like to call them posters and see if people will buy them....


Obviously Ray and his friends didn't appreciate their humor. Mike evidently did; presumably some of the other BBs did also, otherwise why were they included on so many tour dates?
 Humor styles/ tastes change  of course The PB were around long enough that they must have had many people that liked them! Not enough , tho, to release a weird sounding record such as Betty Joe ?

This is pretty much on a par with the stuff the Boys were doing for albums cuts and unused Party takes and Smiley Smile and SMiLE era "humor" takes etc.. It fits right in with Brian's and the Boys' "humor" imo.

Brian's humor was more surreal and Dadaist on the smile tapes. The pickle brothers is really low brow "crowd pleasing" stuff.

As much as I love The Beach Boys for their music, they are definitely not experts when it comes to comedy. But, then again, not too many bands are. The Beatles were quite unique in being genuinely funny.

Agreed.

And it would seem at that November '67 gig in New York, the term 'crowd pleasing' didn't apply if they got heckled off the stage.

Hahaha true, Guitarfool ;D

The inspiration from Arthur Koestler definitely left it's fingerprint on the Beach Boy records (whether it was successful or not). 'Cassius Love vs Sonny Wilson', 'Our Favorite Recording Sessions', etc, right on up to the Smile Sessions....Brian had a genuine philosophical interest in making people laugh. I really don't see how Brian's humor fits in with what The Legendary Flood posted (especially the Smile Session era tracks), but to each his own I suppose....

Luckily they didn't do "Bugged" or "I'm trapped in a microphone" or "She's Goin' Bald" or "Monster Mash" or some of the other "dadaist"  ::) classics in concert. 

They didn't do Monster Mash in concert?

huh?

Oh they did do that high brow dadaist classic "Monster Mash" in concert?

Smile Brian specifically referred to the Smile tapes when referring to the "dadaist" "surreal" humor. Didn't realize that Monster Mash was apart of the Smile Sessions ::)

My apologies Smile Brian. We will just disagree on how high or low brow or dadaist the SMiLE humor was/is.

Brian and the Boys recorded humor had a lot of sympatico with the Pickle Bros imo so it does not seem like a mystery to me how they ended up with BRI.

You are seriously arguing for the pickle brothers? Its an unfunny and very dated act  that Mike Love signed to brother records. Funny how Mike was such a judge of talent with not letting BW produce three dog night for brother. ::)


The pickle brothers is blue collar hawthorne comedy material that BW grew out of by 1967. BW was experimenting with humor on smile sessions in different ways than the pickle brothers.

By the time Smile came around I think Brian's humor was a bit more advanced from their earlier forays, it fell more in line with the ideas that Smile expressed: an abstract look at the world.

Take for instance the "falling into the french horn" or "I'm stuck between the C and the C sharp" or falling into the Mic....fairly surreal ways of looking at the world. Or the workshop clip where someone yells "oooowww!" - which actually made me laugh (which stems, apparently, from the rebuilding of a city after the fire). I'm definitely not saying that this humor is grounded in some sort of genius, but it is a bit more surreal and abstract than whatever the hell the pickle brothers were on about in those clips posted earlier.

I'm really unclear why you quoted me to make this point.

Huh.

Well the guitar's rather well-recorded.

I have reviews of almost every BB show that was reviewed in the 60s-90s.  But the files are all put away.  I pulled out a few.  I think their first appearance with the BBs (as the Uncalled For Three) was at Fordham and their act was considered so inappropriate for the conservative Catholic college that they pulled the plug on them after the first show and they didn't open for the BBs at the second one.  They appeared with them at NCC (Nassau Community College) on May 8, 1966 and the reviewer felt they were hilarious.  They did imitations of Ed Sullivan and Johnny Carson, etc, etc.   

Quoted you?

Oh, you don't mean this quote, the earlier one. Why not?

Because it had nothing to do with anything I said whatsoever.

That must be the comedy part?

Thought the Pickle Bros was a Mike indulgence? Didn't be produce the track posted by be Legendary Flood, above?

Yes he did. Someone, earlier, compared Brian's humor to the pickle brothers, I was merely pointing out the differences.

 ;D

I was agreeing with you that they were not expert at comedy and extending the point.

Hmmm...I played this, and the stray dog I feed left in disgust...and it's freezing outside.

 :lol

...was it named Wrinkles?

ahh, Mikie will find another shelter

:lol

Dusting off this thread for a couple reasons.

First, earlier this year the Pickle Brothers' pilot for their unsold TV series wound up on Youtube -

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bIcODB6rc6Q

 put up there by Peter Lee from the group. Written (and produced) by Gerald Gardner and Dee Caruso of Monkees fame as noted before, and directed by none other than future Oscar winner William Friedkin. Bouncy theme and incidental music by Quincy Jones. For some reason, neither him nor Billy Friedkin ever mention this credit in interviews.

The executive producer of the pilot, uncredited, was Michael Garrison who also created The Wild Wild West. He died falling down the stairs of his mansion shortly after it was made, apparently one reason the show didn't go into production for a full season.

Of the supporting cast I recognized only the name of Liliane Montevecchi who, as her Wiki page shows, has been in more impressive things than this.  But the Pickles' threads are kinda interesting - look like a Carnaby/Sy Devore blend, or something.

At the same time he put up the pilot Lee self-published this e-book,

https://www.amazon.com/Leave-Laughing-History-Brothers-Brother-ebook/dp/B01CMXT7BA/

which runs 126 pages and costs three bucks. I don't have Kindle so haven't read it and don't know if it covers the Pickles' BBs involvement.

You just don't see comedy like that.

Via a link at the Youtube page with the Pickle Brothers pilot, I downloaded Peter Lee's book for free. About one-tenth of the book concerns the tours with the BBs. And it also has an interesting appendix, consisting of a list of the various tour dates the comedy trio did with the guys (75 in all, from April '66 to November '68) compiled by the Pickles' Michael Mishlove at the time, with his comments. These mostly are one-word assessments of how the Pickles' part of the show went, but occasionally there are some more interesting things.

For example, when the BBs did Constitution Hall in Washington DC on Nov. 19, 1967, the Daughters Of The American Revolution, which owns the hall, refused to allow the Pickles to go onstage because comedy acts were verboten at the venue.  Somewhere down the line that changed - indeed, the one time I was at Constitution Hall was for a sold-out Aziz Ansari gig.

But one very intriguing thing about the list in Lee's book is that it has quite a number of BBs gigs that don't show up at all in Badman.

The book also has a vivid desciption of an orgy presided over by Dennis at Room 108 of the Holiday Inn in Spokane, Washington on Aug. 23, 1968.  

But the most jaw-dropping moment in the text comes when Lee discusses the Thanksgiving '67 tour with Buffalo Springfield. He says that his fellow Pickle Brother Ron Prince looked over to Bruce, who was sitting next to him, and found him writing lyrics down. At the top of the paper was the title - "I Write The Songs." That would be more than seven years before the time when Bruce was supposed to have written it - and when he was still in the band first time around.  Kinda makes you wonder.

(The Lei'd show is also discussed. It seems to have been the only occasion the Pickles really saw anything of Brian. Lee says that he came to Honolulu with "his wife and brother-in-law."  I can't remember ever having read of Marilyn, Diane and Barbara having a brother.)

The account of the Pickles' pre-BBs career, back on the East Coast, is also of some interest. The trio was still called The Uncalled-Four Three when they did their first shows with the guys in the spring of '66 - the Pickle Brothers name was conjured up by the people who made their TV pilot later on, and they kept it.  But they'd covered the gamut of Village clubs, the Steel Pier in Atlantic City, college dates, had been on bills with Joan Rivers, George Carlin, Woody Allen, Jake Holmes, and a lot of other names who ended up far better known than them.

I think the book to compare in terms of tour dates would be Rusten and Stebbins's "In Concert" book. I think they cleaned up a lot of stuff put out there by Badman.

A Milton Berle impression with a Jerry Lewis impression and a talking late period (permed no wig) Harpo Marx...thing.  I enjoyed in a way the 2 minutes I watched!

Carl brought The Flame to Brother, Brian brought Redwood/Three Dog Night to Brother, Mike brought The Pickle Brothers. I guess A&R scouting wasn't his thing.

Bumping this thread...Thanks to a random channel surf that landed on a cable network called "Decades" (great programming BTW), I finally got to see The Pickle Brothers' routine on video. It was the May 1967 appearance on the Ed Sullivan show, with the Temptations and Robert Goulet.

I'll just say - and no disrespect to the surviving members of the group - but I can see how and why these guys got booed and heckled off the stage at BB's shows. I know it's subjective and pure opinion, but what I saw them present on Sullivan which ostensibly would have been their "A Game" material since the Sullivan show could create a superstar by Monday morning if the act was good...it just wasn't funny.

I've been waiting a long time to actually see this act after researching and reading discussions like this, especially with the connection to Mike cutting two tracks with them and trying to get them onto the Brother roster and them opening for the band to what seemed like often disastrous results.

Just to set the stage, on Sullivan in May 67 I'm guessing this is pretty much a micro version of what Beach Boys audiences would have seen when they opened for the group.  They looked like they were trying to go for a weird update of the Marx Brothers, which is exactly the premise as described above in earlier posts...but to actually see it as a performance, it was a little off-putting.

The main Pickle was a dead ringer for Milton Berle, hell he even waved a cigar during the act, and he was the Groucho. The taller skinny Pickle wore horn-rimmed glasses and seemed to be going for the Chico part, a fast talker. And the Pickle who wrote the memoir mentioned above tried too hard to be Harpo. I mean, it was almost silly to see the schtick with the curly blonde hair and even a tuxedo sight gag straight from the Marx playbook.

They were manic, but at the same time it felt forced. Like they were looking for the next cue. The Harpo character was really 'working hard' for laughs, trying too hard to get laughs actually. The Chico character was the most stiff, and the Groucho/Uncle Milty brother just came off as a little arrogant especially with a cigar as a prop.

And yes, they did the "Dracula Skit", complete with cape and the Harpo guy flouncing about...it wasn't funny. I think the only giggles came from little kids in the CBS theater who were hoping Ed would have Topo Gigio on the 'shew' that evening.

Oh, and they even ended up singing a portion of whatever song quote they sang for Mike when he produced them for Brother. Don't know how that fit into their Sullivan revue, but it didn't fit on Mike's session either.

So...I finally saw it, and at least for me I can see why they really didn't go anywhere as a comedy team despite having industry connections out the Wazoo and a TV pilot helmed by one of the most creative teams in 60's television.

Still wondering what led to them cutting records for the Beach Boys' company, not on the surface because we know that, but what led them to being produced by Mike and cutting those awful tracks. Did people see humor in those tapes? Who knows.

Anyway, cross that one off my bucket list. I saw what I needed to see of the group that got heckled off the Beach Boys' stages.

Normal bucket list

1) Sky dive
2) Swim with dolphins

Craig's bucket list

1)Watch Pickle Brothers perform on Ed Sullivan Show
2) Swim with dolphins

 ;D Yep, that sums it up.