SONGS ABOUT OR BY PUPPETS
SONGS ABOUT OR BY PUPPETS
6: KEITH HARRIS AND ORVILLE - Orville’s Song
The controversy here is - is a ventriloquists dummy a puppet? Obviously its function is slightly different in the world of rubbish light entertainment, but I maintain that for being hand operated and anthropomorhic that yes, it is a puppet. And anyway, I’m not going to do a series called SONGS ABOUT OR BY DUMMIES. Because that encompasses everyone ever in the music business.
Not really much to say about this song though. It was one which was universally reviled from the moment it was released. Kids around teh country memorised the Kenny Everett joke about Orville wishing he could fly and being given a helping boot. Keith Harris’s genius as a ventriloquist was inventing a character so hateful, that he garnered sympathy when he invented Cuddles, his other character. The Cuddles schtick was after all merely how much he hated “that duck”, ie Orville, and in this he echoed the audience.
Of course a record made by a man pretending to talk for a oversized green duck in a nappy is going to be bad. But did it have to be this bad?
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