Podcast to the head!
June 26, 2017 5:39 PM   Subscribe

Venerable Canadian comedy troupe The Frantics have pored over their entire CBC radio archive for a (planned) 50-part Best Of Frantic Times podcast. Perhaps better known outside Canada for their relatively short-lived TV sketch show Four On The Floor, The Frantics were a four-man comedy troupe most famous for Mister Canoehead, the ubiquitous-for-Doctor-Demento sketch and song Ti Kwan Leep and Boot to the Head, and a fairly well-received Star Trek sketch in the early days of the Just For Laughs comedy festival. Some of the material is... anachronistic is the charitable description; "sexist as hell" is the more accurate label. But for Canadians of a Certain Age, this was the cornerstone of our pre-KiTH comedic development.
posted by Shepherd (33 comments total) 22 users marked this as a favorite
 
Great stuff, my kids grew up watching a variation of "Boot to the head"
posted by greenhornet at 5:52 PM on June 26, 2017 [6 favorites]


BOOT TO THE HEAD

oh man, that skit got worked harder than Monty Python in my friends group in high school. It was on a Dr. Demento album that one of us had, which spread. We were playing tabletop RPGs (because of course we were) and the DM created a special "Boot to the Head" move for someone's character. If he spent a point of something (I forget if he was a mage, vampire or Garou) he could deliver the Boot.
posted by Countess Elena at 5:54 PM on June 26, 2017 [5 favorites]


...and one for Jenny and the Wimp.
posted by TheWhiteSkull at 5:54 PM on June 26, 2017 [10 favorites]


Who can forget Bill from Bala?
posted by dobbs at 6:00 PM on June 26, 2017 [3 favorites]


What flavor is the ice cream?
posted by infinitewindow at 6:04 PM on June 26, 2017


YOU WERE STRUCK BY LIGHTNING!
posted by TheWhiteSkull at 6:06 PM on June 26, 2017 [2 favorites]


I get around town in a brown car
A brown car
It's brown
posted by nubs at 6:44 PM on June 26, 2017 [9 favorites]






I always wanted to play Kloister Kabonk.
posted by Jessica Savitch's Coke Spoon at 7:26 PM on June 26, 2017


Oh, you tease me so, you hot Slovene. A Carole Pope/Tim Curry flavoured tune; I go, we go, Yugo-slavia!
posted by Zedcaster at 7:33 PM on June 26, 2017 [2 favorites]


Any two of us from my group of highschool friends used to be able to do the whole of I shit a piece of Pie ... and did... at a moment's notice.
posted by cirhosis at 7:34 PM on June 26, 2017 [1 favorite]




I always confuse my Frantics with my Arrogant Worms. (I'm so Canadian)
posted by ThatCanadianGirl at 8:34 PM on June 26, 2017 [2 favorites]


From the POV of a long-time Dr. Demento listener, I got the Frantics confused with the Vestibules and their "Bulbous Bouffant".
posted by oneswellfoop at 8:46 PM on June 26, 2017 [2 favorites]


Oh god yes, the Vestibules! Them too!
posted by ThatCanadianGirl at 8:51 PM on June 26, 2017


That shirt alien from the Star Trek sketch is pure genius.
posted by BeeDo at 9:07 PM on June 26, 2017 [3 favorites]


Your postman's made of meat.
posted by maudlin at 10:01 PM on June 26, 2017


Maybe In The Annex will get an answer from this post.
posted by unliteral at 10:14 PM on June 26, 2017 [1 favorite]


I never before knew that multiple martial arts schools perform the Boot to the Head/Ti Kwan Leap skit live, to the recording, as a sort of demo. What an odd Youtube discovery.
posted by mobunited at 1:21 AM on June 27, 2017 [1 favorite]


Your postman's made of meat.

Isn't that by a different Canadian?
posted by a car full of lions at 3:13 AM on June 27, 2017 [1 favorite]


"Taste gunwale!"

The Frantics were a phenomenal live performance troupe - - the day after I saw their show back in the day, my stomach felt like I'd just started a new year's fitness resolution with a thousand crunches.
posted by fairmettle at 4:30 AM on June 27, 2017


I AM SO HERE FOR BILL FROM BALA
posted by Theta States at 6:16 AM on June 27, 2017


I always wanted to play Kloister Kabonk.

Booger Barrage or gtfo
posted by Theta States at 6:18 AM on June 27, 2017 [2 favorites]


the ubiquitous-for-Doctor-Demento sketch and song Ti Kwan Leep and Boot to the Head . . .

oh man, that skit got worked harder than Monty Python . . .



And yet, people are still voting republican.
 
posted by Herodios at 6:58 AM on June 27, 2017 [1 favorite]


"Policeman! Policeman! Helps you every time!
Policeman! Policeman! Won't detect our crime!"

An inadvertent but apt summary of white privilege if ever there was one.
posted by cardboard at 7:06 AM on June 27, 2017


It is if you say it right: Aaaareas....aaaa-reeee-aaaahhhs.
posted by Quindar Beep at 7:38 AM on June 27, 2017 [2 favorites]


I get urges in my areas.
posted by joannemerriam at 9:23 AM on June 27, 2017 [2 favorites]


I want to hear if the Phil The Dentist sketch is as funny as I remember it being.

"People of Earth. This is Phil. No nations have phoned to surrender. Mom phoned, but she is not a nation."
posted by tallmiddleagedgeek at 9:29 AM on June 27, 2017


One can only hope the proceeds will finally allow the people of Calgary to move someplace decent.
posted by Holy Zarquon's Singing Fish at 9:48 AM on June 27, 2017 [3 favorites]


But for pre-adolescent me, the real highlight was realizing how The Frantics' Rick Green was the same COMMANDER RICK from this crazy little late night bit of magic I had discovered called Prisoners Of Gravity.

There were tiny pockets of gold on TV for nerdy little me to discover.
Prisoners Of Gravity covered sci-fi and comic books (and aired a Gaiman interview just weeks after I had found Sandman)
and City Limits (when it was on Fridays at midnight and showed some wonderfully weird music videos from Einsturzende Neubauten and The Residents)
and Night Moves
posted by Theta States at 10:16 AM on June 27, 2017 [5 favorites]


It was a serving of pie!
posted by hearthpig at 2:46 PM on June 27, 2017 [1 favorite]


It's nice that my childhood favorite the Frantics filtered down to US it makes sense that it was via Dr. Demento. My friends and I put on the the Last Will and Temperament sketch in grade 6. Also loved Frantic alumni Rick Green's Prisoners of Gravity.
posted by Ashwagandha at 6:05 PM on June 27, 2017 [1 favorite]


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