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Hit Parade | The White and Nerdy Edition Part 2

Slate Daily Feed

Slate Podcasts

News, Business, Society & Culture

41.1K Ratings

🗓️ 29 August 2025

⏱️ 46 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Sped-up voices. Wacky instruments. Songs about cavemen, bathtubs, bikinis, and mothers-in-law. From the dawn of rock ‘n’ roll through the 1970s—the age of streaking, CB radios, disco and King Tut—novelty songs could be chart-topping hits. But by the corporate ’80s, it was harder for goofballs to score hits on regimented radio playlists. Until one perm-headed, mustachioed, accordion-playing parodist who called himself “Weird” rebooted novelty hits for the new millennium.  In the second part of this encore episode of Hit Parade, Chris Molanphy explores the history of novelty hits on the charts. Podcast production by Justin D. Wright and Kevin Bendis. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0

If you haven't tried Abercrombie denim yet, you're missing out.

0:04.0

Denim should fit like this.

0:06.0

It's all about proportions.

0:08.0

Abercrombie has their classic fits and athletic fits for guys who want a little more room in the thigh.

0:13.0

When you find your staple fit, it'll be the pair you reach for day after day for every plan.

0:19.0

Shop Abercrombie denim in the app, online and in store.

0:27.3

Welcome family, friends and complete strangers.

0:31.8

The deceased led a full life.

0:33.7

She rubbed shoulders with royalty and socialized with socialites.

0:36.9

She was dead rich and was dead fabulous, and now she's just, well, dead.

0:43.6

But whilst some will mourn her loss, others will be busy trying to get their grubby little mitts on her glorious assets.

0:51.5

The Inheritance on Channel 4, a devious New Game. Start Sunday, 31st of August.

0:57.0

Welcome back to Hit Parade, a podcast of Pop Chart History from Slate magazine, about the hits from coast to coast.

1:20.5

I'm Chris Malanfi, chart analyst, pop critic, and writer of Slate's Why Is This Song Number One series?

1:26.9

On our last episode, we walked through the chart history of novelty songs.

1:33.7

These comical ditties were hits even before the dawn of rock and roll,

1:39.2

and they enjoyed major success through the 1950s, 60s, and 70s. But as radio playlists became more

1:48.9

formatted, funny records were gradually sidelined. However, at the dawn of the 80s, a certain accordion

1:57.7

playing weird guy is about to reinvent the business model for parody songs.

2:05.6

In the summer of 1979, 19-year-old Alfred Yankovic, a student at California Polytechnic State

2:15.2

University in San Luis Obispo, California, noticed that there was this

2:21.3

punchy song dominating the radio.

...

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