The Dickies - Cancelled

The Dickies are a delightfully zany and irreverent comedic punk band from Los Angeles, California. The group first formed in the San Fernando Valley region of Los Angeles in 1977. The original band members were: Leonard Graves Phillips (lead vocals), Stan Lee (guitar), Bob Davis (guitar/keyboards/saxophone), Bill Remar (bass), and Carlos Cabellero (drums). The Dickies are distinguished by their winningly campy and goofy sense of playful good humour that's a total radical departure from the often snotty and sarcastic humour of your average punk band. They hold the distinction of being the first California punk group to both appear on network television (they pop up as themselves on an episode of the TV comedy series "CPO Sharkey") and be signed to a major record label. Besides such amusingly nutty original songs as "Hideous," "Waterslide," "Manny, Moe and Jack," "You Drive Me Ape (You Big Gorilla)," "Attack of the Mole Men," and "(I'm Stuck in a Pagoda With) Tricia Toyota," the Dickies have done insanely inspired covers of other artists' songs that include Black Sabbath's "Paranoid," "Nights in White Satin" by the Moody Blues (this particular cover was a Top 40 hit on the UK pop charts in 1979), Barry McGuire's "Eve of Destruction," and "Nobody But Me" by the Human Beinz. The band scored a Top 10 British radio hit in 1979 with their wacky rendition of the 70's Saturday morning cartoon TV series theme tune "Banana Splits (Tra La La Song)." Alas, the group has endured their fair share of hardships throughout the years: Bob Davis committed suicide after breaking up with his girlfriend in June, 1981 while replacement drummer Jonathan Melvoin died of a heroin overdose on July 12, 1996 in New York City. The group did the marvellously madcap theme songs for the movies "Killer Klowns from Outer Space" and "The Spirit of '76." The Dickies are still touring and performing on stage to this very day, although only Leonard Graves Phillips and Stan Lee remain from the original line-up.