TNB Night Owl – Parry Gripp

Warning: Earworms

Every generation has its odd singers. There was Tom Lehrer, creator of tunes like “The Element Song”. Stan Freberg, who would mix songs into his comedy routines. Victor Borge, master pianist and proponent of vocalized punctuation. The famed “Weird Al” Yankovic, who won the Grammy for comedy album so often they changed the rules to keep him from continuing to dominate.

For today’s youth, there’s Parry Gripp.

A professional musician with the geek rock band Nerf Herder, Gripp has made some successful fringe songs and been a composer for television and radio commercials. It’s his bizarre family-friendly tunes which have made him a staple of the teen and pre-teen crowd, however.

A personal aside: I was introduced to his music when at a Dallas Stars game. Following their third goal of the night, one of their sponsors, Taco Bueno, provided a coupon for a free taco to every attendee. The jumbotron and sound system started playing “It’s Raining Tacos”.

At that point I wondered who they got to do the song, because it wasn’t bad, it was just… strange. Too polished for something cobbled together for a stadium promotion, too weird to be around for any reason other than the stadium promotion.

Then Parry showed up as an animated character on the successful Disney show “Phineas and Ferb”. A song was featured on “Star vs. the Forces of Evil”. Songs began showing up on Facebook. In Hallmark cards. The guy was all over the place, and I just hadn’t recognized it. He was, however, responsible for many of the short “earworm” songs of the contemporary era. It simply wasn’t my style of music, so I hadn’t noticed.

But, when I did listen, I had to admit, they were pretty funny. You don’t often hear lyrics about “the genetically modified salamander with a face just like George Clooney” (Neon Pegasus)

So, to entertain you overnight… some bizarre videos from Parry Gripp and animators who like him. Including, just one minute late, the introductory song specifically for Andrew Sherrod: