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June 18, 2009 4:48 PM   Subscribe

 
That made me laugh. Thank you.
posted by billysumday at 4:53 PM on June 18, 2009


Made me a little sad.
posted by Glee at 4:57 PM on June 18, 2009


Made me a little sad.
posted by Glee


eponyouknowthedrill
posted by billysumday at 4:58 PM on June 18, 2009


That poor man.
posted by boo_radley at 5:10 PM on June 18, 2009 [2 favorites]


Imagine the sort of shite we'd call entertainment by now if no-one had made Television programming cheaper to produce...
posted by Brockles at 5:12 PM on June 18, 2009


I saw a white man. Pretty funny.
posted by heyho at 5:15 PM on June 18, 2009


Well, it does somewhat distract one from the fact that he can't sing, I guess.

And now, prepare to be amazed as I saw off my left arm while I sing the theme from "Titanic"!
posted by darkstar at 5:19 PM on June 18, 2009


I prefer this video of his act (in color, with intro, performance shorter and to-the-painful-point)
posted by wendell at 5:26 PM on June 18, 2009


This guy did this act for years and years, on the TV, in he theatres. If there was anything else to his routine I never saw it -- but it never got old.

Mule trai-heen, CRASH!
posted by PeterMcDermott at 5:42 PM on June 18, 2009


What'll you have?
I'll have a pint
I'll have a pint with you, sir
And if one of you doesn't order soon
We'll be chucked out of the boozer
posted by Flunkie at 5:44 PM on June 18, 2009 [1 favorite]


Also, thread needs Hughie Green's patriotic call to the nation: Stand Up and Be Counted
posted by PeterMcDermott at 5:46 PM on June 18, 2009


Hmph! Irreverent and ridiculous!





I loved it.
posted by Drainage! at 6:00 PM on June 18, 2009


This is what I do daily, but without the singing.
posted by nola at 6:03 PM on June 18, 2009 [5 favorites]


Made me think of this modern update
posted by msalt at 6:03 PM on June 18, 2009 [1 favorite]




mommy, why does that man keep hitting himself with a tray?
posted by photoslob at 7:57 PM on June 18, 2009


Needs some solid potato salad.
posted by GuyZero at 9:38 PM on June 18, 2009


When I was but a wee youngster, back in the Seventies, on the old Sonny and Cher Show they stole this guy's bit and I remember laughing till I cried. Some guy popped up out of a trunk and sang Mule Train, but he used a cookie sheet to beat his head with and the beating was much more incessant, cuz it was only for one quick chorus. Now I know where Sonny and Cher's writers stole the bit from.
posted by wsg at 9:44 PM on June 18, 2009


Why is it funny? I don't know. It just is.
posted by wsg at 10:03 PM on June 18, 2009


When it started, I thought to myself "what the fuck am I looking at here? honestly, what the fuck?"

But by the end, I was thinking to myself "what the fuck am I looking at here? honestly, what the fuck?"

I may have also said it out loud several times.

This is proof that YouTube didn't invent incredibly-stupid-but-inexplicably-funny entertainment.
posted by davejay at 10:20 PM on June 18, 2009


err....uhh...ouch?
posted by nj_subgenius at 10:27 PM on June 18, 2009


My Dad is obsessed with this guy. To the extent that, unprompted and sober, he will do it in restaurants, bars, churches and libraries - often without warning and in a foghorn of a voice.

And its not just because he, like me, is a mildly autistic show off with a magpie mind. Its because he loves that late vintage vaudeville and all its redolence of a time when a guy who could do one thing - and only one thing - could turn it into a life in Teh Showbiz.

This guy was on television regularly when I was a lad - on Royal Command Performances and variety shows. This is all he did. Same song. Same tray. Same head. And he was famous. Now you could argue that celebrity works the same way these days and that there are parallels between this guy and every famous-for-being-famous celebuttante out there.

But I think the appeal of this guy's act is something different. It's *so* wafer thin that it's barely even there at all. And, placed in the context of a crowded theatre of paying punters, its elevated to an artform more pure than any you'd are to mention.

Looked at from another perspective, of course, its a dude hitting himself on the head with a bar tray.

Anyway, I only mention this really to note that, moving into his sixties, my Dad's enthusiasm for this song hasn't diminished at all and, with the Saunders family moving into another generation, he's finding new audiences all the time. (BLATANT SELF LINK)
posted by Jofus at 2:22 AM on June 19, 2009 [10 favorites]


This is better than Cats.
posted by Potomac Avenue at 3:54 AM on June 19, 2009


Strike that, this is better than Wagner.
posted by Potomac Avenue at 3:58 AM on June 19, 2009


Yep. I remember Tremont Blackman being on Nationwide.
posted by scruss at 4:58 AM on June 19, 2009


So, this guy's a one hit wonder then?


I'll hit myself in the head for that, don't worry.
posted by orme at 5:17 AM on June 19, 2009 [3 favorites]


Also, thread needs Hughie Green's patriotic call to the nation: Stand Up and Be Counted

Bob was actually a winner on New Faces, not Opportunity Knocks... which I learned doing a bit of google to try and find more about him. Not much as it happens, except that he's no longer with us - he's not even got a Wikipeida page.

He's one of those things I remember from my childhood and had several pub conversations about over the years... I was watching some other ancient novelty acts on youtube (coming to a fpp near you soon) and then suddenly thought 'I wonder if that mule train tray nutter is on here'? But of course everything is on Youtube.
posted by fearfulsymmetry at 6:14 AM on June 19, 2009


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