MP3:
Kookie's Love Song (While Dancing) (2:18)
Kookie's Love Song (While Dancing) - Do It Yourself Sing With Edd Byrnes ("Kookie") (2:17)
Edd "Kookie" Byrnes was the pre-Fonz epitome of "cool" in the late 50's and early 60's. As the star of the popular television series "77 Sunset Strip", Kookie became a celebrity overnight. The series released an excellent (really!) chart topping Kookie album (which spawned the hit "Kookie, Kookie, Lend me your Comb", sung with Connie Stevens), Kookie comic books, Kookie dolls and of course, Kookie combs. Inevitably, the frustration of seeing other people but him make money with a multimillion dollar Kookie marketing campaign eventually led Byrnes to quit the show.
I wasn't born in those days and can't say I've ever watched the series (hello DVD release?!) and yet Kookie remains one of my favorite pop culture characters! I thought I was pretty well versed in all things "Kookie" until I came across this little gem of a single! This single features Kookie talking to a young doll (Joanie Sommers) while they pound the ground, with the B-Side sing-along for the dolls at home who want some "alone time" with Kookie!
I don't know about you but I've always dreamed of one day being able to ask Kookie if I really was ginchy. "That's for squares, baby. You're the skizziest!"
Like, wowsville, Romeo!
(I must embarrassingly admit I was mildly disillusioned when Byrnes wrote in his 1994 autobiography "Kookie No More" that he didn't really understand the "Kookie" lingo, since it was written for him by the series' writers and he would get "clouds in his noggin'" when fans and even fellow actors asked him to say something "Kookie".)
- Contributed by: Mimi la Twisteuse
Media: 45
Label: Warner Bros.
Catalog: 5114
Date: 1959
the 77 sunset strip soundtrack record is awesome.
Posted by: Peter | May 21, 2007 at 10:39 AM
"Kookie, Lend Me Your Comb"...as briefly as the series was on-air, the pop-culture impact was pretty indelible. There's a whole blind spot there of early 1960s culture for me: barely too early for me to know firsthand, but not recycled or rerun enough for general regurgitation years after the fact. I get huge laughs out of pop-culture obsessives who get nostalgic for a time and/or place that was never a part of their own lives, such as Beatle fans who use Britspeak when they might've been born in Iowa.
Posted by: Jim | May 21, 2007 at 04:34 PM
Wow, it sounds like the Trio has a head cold...
"I doe; I doe, I doe, I doe..."
Posted by: folksnake | May 21, 2007 at 10:41 PM
77 Sunset Strip is re-running on some cable channel right now...not one of the biggies. I think it's called American Life cable network or something. They show lot's of old shows, including Hawaiian Eye starring Robert Stack. Classic.
Posted by: tony c | May 22, 2007 at 08:17 PM
I can't believe that it's not mentioned that he was Vince Fontaine in "Grease" --- he was the dance host and hit on Marty Maraschino.
Posted by: Rhonda R. | July 28, 2007 at 08:32 PM