Frank DeVol is hilarious as Happy Kyne, but it's important to remember he's not just portraying a musician; the guy composed scores for both television and motion pictures. Just an amazingly talented man.
Needs to be recognized as a great funny comedy... our world need this.. Martin Mull.. Fred Willard.. were awesome... laughed every night in the 70s.. watching it
I know many folks might not know it, but the drummer, Colin Bailey, TO THIS DAY, is one of the greatest jazz drummers all times! The man is 85 and still rockin'! I learned the heal/toe bass drum pedal technique from his instructional videos. Then of course Mr. Tommy Tedesco of the famed Wrecking Crew on guitar! He's only played on about a billion records!!
@@steverino3447 I just learned it :( I was lucky enough to get to speak to him on the phone back in 2002. I sent him an email telling him I always wanted to know about his character, since he was the only band member not to ever be introduced, he gave me his number and told me I could call him and we could chat about the show. So I called and we chatted about an hour or so... I cannot believe how nice he was.... I know he'll be missed
@@jonnaking3054 I emailed him 4 or 5 years ago and asked him about it and he emailed me about back, told me some things about it, said it was the most fun he ever had with his pants on. 🤣 I still have the email, it may even be longer than that but yes, he seemed like a very nice guy.
frank devol was a great musician and composer. he was a leader at local 47 in hollywood for years. those guys behind him, are all famous studio musicians. tommy tedesco on the guitar!... classic.
I first saw that look from Martin Mull in either late 1971 or early 1972 when he played my college large "coffeehouse" in Massachusetts as "Martin Mull and his Magic Midget Band." Which consisted of Martin and 3 or 4 very short male musicians. They were actually a most capable band, he was a good blues-country-rock style lead guitarist and singer. But the sarcasm between songs, and also the similar looks he gave his fellow-musicians was the best part of the act. Just what you see in this video. As to the college gig, he probably got the booking because his younger sister was a fellow student of ours-he was then unknown except to maybe a few. His first music-comedy recordings came a year or two later.. And at least at the time I knew his sister, when she was maybe 19 or 20, she seemed like a very sweet person. There was probably no room for two who were that sarcastic in the same family.
I happened to grow up in Fernwood and took my grandmother to the tapings of these shows. Happy lived down the street from her, she used to bake him jello salads since he didn't have time to make them himself. He really liked the ones with marshmallows and grated carrots in them. He said it gave him the creative energy he needed for his musical genius. True fact, he didn't like the guitar player, since he was Bigtime Cleveland. You can't take the wood our of a Fern.
I had known of Frank DeVol as he worked as an arranger for bandleader Alvino Rey's band between 1939 and '42.My late,dear friend,Skeets Herfurt,had left Tommy Dorsey's band where he had been playing alto,then tenor sax,from 1937 to early that year,to play alto for Rey,who had played guitar for Horace Heidt and His Musical Knights.Mr.DeVol had been an arranger for Heidt at that time.Mr. DeVol would join the newly formed Capitol label in the '40s and would stay there into the '50s then join Capitol.I spoke to him in the late '90s when his wife,the former Jimmy Dorsey vocalist,Helen O'Connell passed away.I called to give him my condolences as well as telling him how much I respected him.Mr. DeVol later passed away from Alzheimer's in the early '00s.He was also a respected comedic actor.I recall seeing him on a TV show in the '60s.
Those who know Frank de Vol only as bandleader "Happy Kyne" may not know that he was actually an accomplished musician who arranged songs for well known singers like Nat King Cole, Ella Fitzgerald, Sarah Vaughan, Tony Bennett, Dinah Shore, Doris Day, and Vic Damone. He also composed (along with other works) the theme songs for "My Three Sons", "Family Affair", and "The Brady Bunch".
You know, if I'm not mistaken, and I don't think that I am, Frank de Vol also helped with several Ted Nugent songs in the middle 1970's. Among the songs were "Cat Scratch Fever," "Wang Dang Sweet Poontang," " One Eyed Worm," "Hot Frothing Frosting," "Stinky Finger," "Hurtin' for a Squirtin'," "Juicer," "Honey Cakes," and "Crusin' for a Splugin'." Frank really pushed Ted to write some of his finest and most romantic love songs of his career.
Frank De Vol was a very successful film and TV composer. He was also a very successful comic actor. He's pop up all over the place including Get Smart.
Frank DeVol was an acquaintance of mine.Skeets Herfurt,who played reeds,and DeVol were part of the old Alvino Rey band from 1939 until 1942.Skeets was given about 30% of the band and DeVol was an arranger who came over from Horace Heidt's Musical Knights.Rey had played guitar in the band and The King Sisters were also part of the band.When I talked to DeVol,his second wife,Helen O'Connell(singer with Jimmy Dorsey)had just passed away.I had called to give him my condolenscences.He died a few years later from dementia.Skeets had played for both Dorsey brothers between 1934 and '39.
De Vol had such a great comic presence, I figured he was the ONE person in the band who was a comic actor, with that great "hang dog face." I presumed he was not a musician but a ringer. I knew who Frank De Vol was but I had no clue Happy was De Vol, since I wasn't a regular viewer. His terrific talent and career makes this all the more of a treasure!
I was lucky enough to speak to him on the phone once, I sorta interviewed him about his experience on Fernwood 2Night. He was the only band member who was never introduced, he told me he was supposed to be in an cigarette ad on the show, but the woman writing the skit, got sick and it never happened.
@Narciso Duran Such "weird" long-term memories seem to be a wondrous curiosity of the human brain. Perhaps it is precisely because they are so odd that they become indelibly stamped in our brains. If they were ordinary, they wouldn't stand out. That whole show was so bizarre. It was like a misfit version of Lawrence Welk, which, come to think of it, was pretty strange itself...American TV-viewer gold!
@@gallery7596 Jim Breuer, or "Goat Boy" in the mid to late 90s "Saturday Night Live" cast should be quizzed about whether he saw Mr. Bailey in action because in my opinion, there are parallels. This is great stuff. The accordion riffs leave me thinking about the Schmenge Brothers on SCTV a few years later but apparently there was a guy in Edmonton coming with the polka when their show was produced there.
@@gallery7596 Fernwood and Dave's skits on the Starland Vocal Band Show started almost simultaneously, and Letterman was known for saying crazy stuff as an Indianapolis weatherman years before that. Doesn't dismiss your assertion at all, they both went for the surreal and deadpan/satire stuff!
Frank DeVol wrote the music for two of my favorite movie/music moments. The first being 'I've Written a Letter to Daddy', from Robert Aldrich's WHAT EVER HAPPENED TO BABY JANE, the second being 'Hush Hush Sweet Charlotte', from the Aldrich movie of the same name. Creepy, yet beautiful.
@@foobarmaximus3506 You don't get to define genius, dummy. DeVol WAS a genius as a composer. He was nominated for four Academy Awards. Learn some history kid.
Frank DeVol (Happy Kyne) besides being a good actor was also a composer, arranger, and band leader of first rate accomplishment. It really is true that to do really bad music really well you have to have real talent for it to come off funny.
This rendition here is performed by the man composed the themes for My Three Sons[featuring himself on sax and I'm guessing harmonica as well], Family Affair and of course, The Brady Bunch.
Thanks billga2010. Duenge is correct, the drummer was on the Tonight Show. I was watching some old clips in tribute to Carson and I saw the drummer doing this thing and I was like "oh my god".
Cancel that: just read the postings above. Thanks for the info people. Obviously some very cool people dug this show as much as I did. "America 2night" wasn't quite as good.
Frank DeVol wrote the theme music to many of the popular tv shows during the 50s and 60s. Don't know about Colin Bailey in the Tonight Show Orchestra. That drummer was always Ed Shaughnessey, unless when Ed wasn't there and they had a fill-in drummer.
I love it...the author of Bass Drum Control doing an excellent bit. I thought Charlie Brown Christmas was Jerry Granelli? Bailey absolutely did work with Guaraldi though.
I saw this same question on a video of Jerry Granelli drumming to "Linus and Lucy," and did a little digging. According to *Colin Bailey’s* Wikipedia entry, “Bailey also performed with Guaraldi on the Peanuts television specials _A Charlie Brown Christmas_ (1965), _It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown_ (1966) and _He's Your Dog, Charlie Brown_ (1968). However, *Jerry Granelli’s* Wikipedia entry states, “[Granelli] was best known for playing drums on the soundtrack _A Charlie Brown Christmas_ with the Vince Guaraldi Trio.” So…I guess Bailey drummed on the TV special version, and Granelli drummed on the albums? Coincidentally both drummers died in 2021, but _Bailey_ - the older of the two jazz drummers - died two months after Granelli.
Frank DeVol and the boys should have released an album, slaughtering the worse songs of the '70's, as they are doing here. It would have been worthy of Spike Jones. I can't believe the HOT guitar lines that Tommy Tedesco is throwing into such a monumentally lame tune.
On Fernwood 2Nite. Happy Kyne had a side business restaurant called Bun And Run. And then when they moved the show to California it became America 2Nite. And he reopened the restaurant as Taco And Run.
Happy Kyne and the Mirthmakers were simply brilliant. A little known fact is that they sold more records in England than the Beatles. Happy is no Slouch. On top of "Boogie Feaver" their hits include "Frost My Love Muffin," " Boogie Beaver," " Slide it All the Way In," "Stuffing Beaver," "Bopping Beaver," "Stroking Beaver by the Dashboard Lights," "Pump Me Full," "Hurt Me Gently," "Hurtin' for a Squirtin'," "Juice Me Baby," "Gusher !" "and Baist My Mellons." I'm planning to catch their New Years Eve Show in November.
That's Colin Bailey on drums. I also remember watching this show when it first aired. It ran for only about two months during the summer of '77. They then did America 2 Night in early '78 but that didn't last very long either. Too bad because the shows were hilarious.
