I’m deviating from the Facebook post order here and inserting another album I also wanted to put up because Stan influenced my outlook on humour, on advertising and on satire. And because my blog, my rules.
Everything today in the genre of spoofs and take-offs comes from this one man. Seriously. More importantly, this is the man who made funny a big part of ads. Every single Super Bowl ad you love for a theatre of the absurd punch line can be traced back to Stan.
Unless you are a member of the rag tag gypsies currently making independent podcasts or a long time radio fan, you’ve probably never heard of this guy.
Because he was radio.
That’s where the imagination works best. If you’ve ever heard the sound clip of Lake Michigan filled with hot chocolate, topped with a mountain of whipped cream and a giant maraschino cherry towed in by the Canadian Air Force, you’ve heard Stan Freberg.
If you haven’t…well, you just pictured it, right? And no photograph will ever match the one inside your head right now.
He was a pioneer of satire. It was a surgical tool in his hands, for dissecting what was absurd in popular culture of his day.
I thought of him today when I heard the current president of the United States call a new weapon of war a “super duper missile.”
Oh man. What a perfect set up for Stan.