\u201cOO EE, OO AH AH, TING TANG, WALLA WALLA BING BANG.\u201d Ask any child or teen-ager of the \u201950s what this phrase means and they will remember the summer of 1958, a summer most memorable because of its music, including \u201cWitch Doctor\u201d by David Seville and \u201cPurple People Eater\u201d by Sheb Wooley.<\/p>\n
Actually, Seville\u2019s song never told us what the words to his chorus meant, only that they are advice from a wise witch doctor to a victim of unrequited love:<\/p>\n
\u201cYou\u2019ve been keeping love from me just like you were a miser, \/ And I\u2019ll admit I wasn\u2019t very smart. \/ So I went out and found myself a guy who\u2019s so much wiser, \/ And he taught me the way to win your heart.\u201d You know the rest.<\/p>\n
Anyway, the mysterious words seemed to strike a chord with me and my nine-year-old buddies who were beginning to deal with some just-as-mysterious passions awakened in us by the likes of Mouseketeer Annette Funicello. How would we ever get beauties like her to notice us? \u201cOo ee, oo ah ah, ting tang, walla walla bing bang.\u201d You\u2019ve got to admit; the words have a ring of truth to them.<\/p>\n
\u201cWitch Doctor\u201d was the biggest hit David Seville, whose real name was Ross Bagdasarian, would ever record, and, today, he is most famous for his role as creator of the first animal musicians of the era, \u201cThe Chipmunks.\u201d Alvin, Simon, and Theodore began their recording career shortly after the success of \u201cWitch Doctor.\u201d<\/p>\n
There were a lot of firsts in 1958, including the issuing of the first general credit cards (Visa and American Express), the building of the first Pizza Hut franchise (located in Wichita, Kansas), the maiden voyage of the first U.S.-built commercial jet (the Boeing 707), the first baby boomer fad (Whamo sold 100 million hoola hoops), and the launch of the first U.S. satellite.<\/p>\n
Perhaps it was our interest in space that inspired the major pop music hit of the summer, maybe the first piece about an extraterrestrial, \u201cPurple People Eater\u201d by Sheb Wooley.<\/p>\n
Wooley, who grew up just across the border from the Texas Panhandle in Eric, Oklahoma, was a multitalented musician, comedian, and actor, whose credits included roles in Giant <\/em>with James Dean, War Wagon <\/em>with John Wayne, and Outlaw Josie Wales <\/em>with Clint Eastwood. Wooley also worked with Eastwood from 1959 to 1967 in the popular TV series Rawhide <\/em>(he was the scout, Pete Nolan). In addition, Wooley wrote numerous country western songs, including the theme to the TV show Hee Haw<\/em>, where he worked in 1969 as part of the original cast.<\/p>\n \u201cPurple People Eater\u201d was a song about a one-eyed, one-horned alien with the gift of flight. Contrary to popular opinion, he wasn\u2019t purple. He was so named because he ate purple people, which, by the way, is not why he decided to visit earth. Rather, it turned out that the Purple People Eater had the same goal as every American kid in the \u201950s: \u201cI wanna get a job in a rock and roll band,\u201d he sang.<\/p>\n Unlike the rest of us, the Purple People Eater succeeded, and the song ended with his TV debut. \u201cHe was blowing it out, A\u2019really knockin\u2019 em dead, \/ Playin\u2019 rock and roll music through the horn in his head.\u201d<\/p>\n You know the rest. All together now, \u201cHe was a one-eyed, one-horned, flyin\u2019 Purple People Eater, \/ one-eyed one-horned\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n **I’m curious. Do you have memories of those days? If so, tell me about them here or on the Facebook feed.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" \u201cOO EE, OO AH AH, TING TANG, WALLA WALLA BING BANG.\u201d Ask any child or teen-ager of the \u201950s what this phrase means and they will remember the summer of 1958, a summer most memorable because of its music, including \u201cWitch Doctor\u201d by David Seville and \u201cPurple People Eater\u201d by Sheb Wooley. Actually, Seville\u2019s song […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3599","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mikebellah.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3599","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mikebellah.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mikebellah.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mikebellah.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mikebellah.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3599"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mikebellah.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3599\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3600,"href":"https:\/\/mikebellah.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3599\/revisions\/3600"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mikebellah.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3599"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mikebellah.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3599"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mikebellah.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3599"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}