Crappy Album Covers #81 — Crappy By Request

Bunk Strutts has requested that I look at a link he sent me, and here is what I am coming back with. He had sent me a link to Franklarosa.com some weeks ago, and only now I am coming around to the requests. So, you might have to wait up to 3 weeks, since I post a couple of weeks in advance, before people actually see it.

album-cover-crap-106_-_hit_70s_tv_franklarosa_com A group called “The Pop Singers and Orchestra” has this album called “Themes from TV Hit Shows”, obviously from the late 70s/early 80s.

Get a load of these cartoony impressions of the stars of these programs. Kind of makes it look mindless. Just the way I remembered those programs. It’s just that the offerings by networks these days make these 70’s programs look like “University on the Air” by comparison.

We witness Valerie Bertinelli, the hearthrob from One Day At A Time, looking as if she has Down’s Syndrome; Angie Dickinson (Police Woman) gritting her teeth instead of smiling; Jack Lord (Hawaii Five-O) looks like Dudley Moore; and Lindsay Wagner (Bionic Woman) looks like an 18 year-old valedictorian. Archie and Meathead look like they’re gonna kiss and the ladies look terribly worried; and Sanford is going to be strangled by his son.

Michael Landon (Little House On The Prarie) looks like a seventies’ lead guitarist surrounded by his child-age female groupies (Hold it! That’s exactly how he looked on the TV show!). Lee Majors (Six Million Dollar Man), whose portrait presented here was drawn during his brief encounter with a moustache, looks sad that Charlie’s Angels has borrowed all three of his pink turtlenecks, and he had to settle for wearing a crappy orange one.

Then, there’s The Waltons. Look, I grew up on this program. It was my mother’s favourite, since she grew up in the praries in the ’30s, the same period of the program. This means that the theme is forever burned on to my cerebral cortex. Why on earth does someone feel the world needs yet another rendition of that infernal theme?

album_cover_crap_121_-_cabot_franklarosa_com Going back a decade, Sebastian Cabot played the butler Giles French in the sitcom “Family Affair”. Here, he recites (not sings) the greater works of Bob Zimmerman (nee Dylan) in his album “Sebastian Cabot, Actor/Bob Dylan, Poet”.

I am unsure why the silhouette of Dylan is distorted near Cabot’s head. Looks like Dylan’s harmonica is trying to eat his face.

You have not lived until you have heard Sebastian Cabot read (not sing) “It Ain’t Me Babe”. I can’t seem to find an MP3 of this, but he recites it like he is reciting Shakespeare. I heard it once years ago, and I recall it was unintentionally hilarious. The “music” is in the same league as William Shatner’s “Transformed Man” made around the same time. Recall that in that album, Shatner distinguished himself by reciting (not singing) “Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds”. Or you’re maybe better off not recalling that one.

I went through his track listing, and he thankfully does not do “Subterranean Homesick Blues” or “Lay Lady Lay”.

This album has since been re-released in 2007 on CD, and is sold on Amazon, if you really want to hear “It Ain’t Me, Babe” that bad. You can download the individual MP3 from there, I believe.

Actually, I have found the song embedded in a video from You Tube:

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