Tuesday, December 6, 2016

Canned Heat punchline

Spotted in the fog of late-night reruns: the Bob Newhart Show episode “Here’s Looking at You, Kid,” first aired September 20, 1975. Howard Borden (Bill Daily) explains to his fiancée Ellen Hartley (Pat Finley) that he always plays “As Time Goes By” when he irons:

“I have thirteen different versions, one for each shirt. Would you like to hear a Les Paul and Mary Ford, or Canned Heat?”
I suppose the joke is meant to suggest Howard’s devotion to Ellen and his eccentric musical taste. The joke drew little laughter from the studio audience, for whom the name Canned Heat might have recalled “Going Up the Country” and little else. In 1975, the band was in hard times, not for the first time and not for the last.

In 1972, the Canned Heat album Future Blues made an appearance in a Brady Bunch episode.

Related reading
All OCA Canned Heat posts (Pinboard)

[Canned Heat never recorded “As Time Goes By.” Les Paul and Mary Ford? I don’t know.]

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