2009-08-04

Mickey Katz parodies Davy Crockett with "Duvid Crockett, King of Delancy Street"

The wonderful thing about the internet is the serendipity of discovery. I was reading Mark Evanier's blog, News From Me, and he had posted a segment of the Hollywood Palace from March 27, 1965. It was Tony Randall introducing Allan Sherman performing his parody of Petula Clark's "Downtown" entitled "Crazy Downtown." I watched and enjoyed that piece, one thing led to another and I came across "Duvid Crockett, King of Delancy Street" by Mickey Katz.

Now I'd never heard of Mickey Katz, but I gather he was a great jewish yiddish entertainer who received his first moments of fame in the 1940s as a member of Spike Jones and His City Slickers. There he was known for his "glugging" vocal sound effects on tunes like "Cocktails for Two" and "Hawaiian War Chant". Katz later went on to perform his own musical review and record highly popular "ethnic" comedy albums on the Capitol label where he would perform English-Yiddish parody songs.

Katz son is Broadway legend, Joel Grey, and his granddaughter is actress Jennifer Grey. The video that follows is Katz parody of the 50's Disney tv theme song to "Davy Crockett, King of the Wild Frontier." Have fun!

"Duvid Crockett, King of Delancy Street"