Hit Parade: The White and Nerdy Edition
b'Sped-up voices. Wacky instruments. Songs about cavemen, bathtubs, bikinis and mothers-in-law. From the very birth of rock-and-roll, novelty songs were essential elements of the hit parade. Right through the \\u201970s\\u2014the age of streaking, CB radios, disco and King Tut\\u2014novelty songs could be chart-topping hits. But by the corporate \\u201980s, it was harder for goofballs to score round-the-clock hits on regimented radio playlists.\\nUntil one perm-headed, mustachioed, accordion-playing parodist who called himself \\u201cWeird\\u201d rebooted novelty hits for the new millennium. A video jokester before YouTube, he just might have ushered in the age of the meme. So join Hit Parade this month as we walk through the history of novelty hits on the charts\\u2014most especially if M.C. Escher is your favorite M.C.\\nPodcast production by Justin D. Wright.\\nFollow @cmolanphy on Twitter\\n\\n\\nLearn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices'