Novelty Songs That Could Only Have Become Hits In The '80s

For as long as there have been pop tunes, there has been what those slick music industry types refer to as "novelty songs." There is no strict definition of that term, but songs that fall into this category are often put together by non-musicians (like comedians, or executives), are sometimes an attempt to cash in on one pop culture craze or another, and are almost always attempts at hilarity that may or may not hit the mark. Sure, some novelty tunes can bring the belly laughs — before he was recognized as a national treasure, "Weird Al" Yankovic was considered to traffic exclusively in the form, for example. Others are capable of making the average listener cringe hard enough to make their eyes pop out of their heads, and it might not surprise you to know that these are often the most popular ones. 

There is one fairly consistent characteristic of novelty tunes: They're usually really, really weird, and in the '80s, one could say that about pretty large swaths of pop music in general. The novelty songs that came out of that decade, then, were an extra-special blend of weird — enough so that, if you were around at the time, you might have convinced yourself that some of the tunes we'll be looking at today were fever dreams. Well, they were not, and here they are in all their gonzo glory — those pop novelties that could only have become hits in the '80s.

This might seem completely made-up if you weren't around at the time, but in the early 1980s, soap operas were, like, really popular. Perhaps because the advent of VCRs allowed them to be watched any time, the daytime dramas were dominating pop culture right alongside video games and MTV — and none were more popular than "General Hospital," whose power couple Luke (Anthony Geary) and Laura (Genie Francis) brought in the largest daytime audience in history when they got married in 1981. That very year, a quartet of studio vocalists dubbed The Afternoon Delights even managed to score a Billboard Top 40 hit with what we can only hope will forever be the only soap-themed rap song in history: "General Hospi-Tale." 

The brainchild of producer Harry King and radio DJ Lisa "Lipps" Tedesco, the tune appeared on an album populated by unremarkable, non-novelty R&B tunes, and while the LP went nowhere, its soapy, rappy single was a No. 33 hit. To its credit, the tune didn't just sing the praises of "General Hospital," it accurately summarized current plotlines with lyrics like: "It started out in Port Charles town / Where Frank Smith's mob used to hang around / No one could prove that he was a crook / Until Luke stole his little black book." Fans, of course, ate all this up — soap fans, that is. Rap fans, not so much.

As an Indonesian-born singer of Dutch descent educated in Belgium and the United States, one would be forgiven for thinking that the artist known as Taco chose that name for some oddball reason. He did not choose it; his parents did, and in an interview, he explained that it's actually a fairly common Dutch name that his folks picked out of a baby book, apparently unaware of its Spanish-Mexican culinary background. In the early '80s, Taco was recording in German for a label in that country when he got the opportunity to sign with Polydor. "At that time, I composed and sang rock, soul and blues songs," he explained. "I had to come up with a radical new image. And with the new electro pop movement, I combined the American songbook with New Wave beats."

This is how a guy named Taco came to score a No. 4 pop hit in 1983 with a New Wave cover of Irving Berlin's classic "Puttin' On the Ritz," a development which Taco says surprised literally everyone, including himself. Of course, MTV helped out by plopping the video into heavy rotation, and with Taco's nattily androgynous look and the tune's unique take on Berlin's timeless material, it's no surprise that the song struck a chord. What may come as a surprise, though, is Berlin's reaction. "Years later, I was very fortunate to be able to speak to Mr. Berlin on the phone," Taco said, "and he told me how much he liked our version of his song."

The 1987 movie revival of the beloved cops-and-robbers series "Dragnet" didn't exactly go by the book. In place of Jack Webb as Joe Friday, we had Dan Aykroyd as... Joe Friday, the nephew of Webb's hard-boiled detective, in the straight-man role he was born to play. Opposite him, as his goofy, rules and regulations-averse partner Pep Streebek: Tom Hanks, in the cut-up role he was born to play. Throw in a truly weird plot about ritualistic pagan murders in LA, and the result is an '80s-tastic send-up of the classic show that would not have been complete without a proper theme song: "City of Crime," which of course featured Aykroyd and Hanks in character, rapping about being hard-nosed cops.

The song is pure silliness, with Aykroyd and Hanks spitting rhymes like, "You're a dangerous mob and it is our job / To bust you all for being violent / While we are here let's state it clear / You have the right to remain silent." The video is even sillier, featuring the pair busting out synchronized dance routines in a police station in between hot verses. Hanks was reminded of his brush with rap immortality during a 2015 appearance on "The Graham Norton Show," where he claimed that fate had conspired to make "City of Crime" the very first thing he ever saw on YouTube.

Few novelty tunes have lasting cultural impact, even fewer score Grammy nominations, and you could likely count the number that have achieved both on one hand — perhaps even one finger. Leave it to the late, great Frank Zappa, one of the weirdest and most talented musicians in history, to offer up a blistering satire of mindless consumerism so sublime that it sails right over the heads of 99% of its listeners, and right into pop culture immortality: "Valley Girl," the song that birthed that descriptor, featuring his then-14-year-old daughter Moon Zappa throwing down comedic monologues for the ages.

The song is pure early '80s power pop, but since it's Zappa, it's musically interesting and genuinely catchy. As Frank's verses back her up, Moon's interludes expound on the joys of shopping and diss clueless boys and manicurists, all while casually dropping phrases that would soon be adopted by teens all over the world: "Like, totally," "Barf me out," "Bag your face," and "Gag me with a spoon," to name a few. In an interview before his death, Zappa was a little, well, grossed out at the song's enduring popularity. "The worst thing about that record is the fact that nobody really listened to it," he said — but even he had to admit that "sociologically, it was the most important record of 1982 in the United States."

"SCTV," also known as "Second City Television," produced nearly as many comedy superstars in the '70's and '80s as "Saturday Night Live." The Canadian institution ran for six seasons between 1976 and 1984, and featured the stylings of such beloved comics as John Candy, Eugene Levy, Catherine O'Hara, Martin Short, and Rick Moranis — the latter of whom teamed up with fellow screwball Dave Thomas to create the characters of Bob and Doug McKenzie, a couple of harebrained Canuck hosers who hosted the fictional gabfest "Great White North," and who probably did more to advance Canadian stereotypes among Americans than pretty much anyone else. 

The duo were briefly insanely popular in both Canada and the States in the early '80s, and in addition to the classic feature film "Strange Brew," this period also produced a Bob and Doug comedy LP, also titled "Great White North." This record sported a genuine Top 10 single: "Take Off," featuring the pair bickering hilariously during the verses, which were broken up by a chorus sung by none other than Geddy Lee of Rush, who was a childhood friend of Moranis. For those keeping score at home, "Take Off" — which peaked at No. 8 — is actually the highest-charting record Lee has ever appeared on; 1982's "New World Man," the most successful single Rush ever offered up, peaked at No. 21.

In 1979, a Christmas classic was born when songwriter Randy Brooks played his latest tune for Elmo Shropshire and his wife, Patsy Trigg, who were part-time bluegrass performers. Brooks, whose uncle was comedian Foster Brooks, fancied himself a pretty funny guy — and Shropshire and Trigg agreed, working his song into their act. In short order, they ponied up for studio time to record what would become a bona fide holiday staple: "Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer."

It would be four years before the public caught on — thanks, of course, to MTV, who were happy to air the cheaply made-yet-hilarious video ad infinitum during the 1983 Christmas season. The rest is history, as Brooks' gag tune — which declares that "You might think there's no such thing as Santa / But as for me and Grandpa, we believe" — has long since taken its place among the ranks of Yuletide standards. In a 2022 interview with Billboard, Shropshire shared that he expected "the bottom [to] drop out" every year after Christmas — but it just never did, and even today in his 80s, he's happy to play the tune that made him a holiday legend.