My favourite parody songs: the Bonzos, National Lampoon, NTNON, Chris Morris and Tony Ferrino

As I admitted in a recent exchange of comments with ex-KCS, I'm not big on comedy songs. True, when I was a nipper I almost wore out the 45s of Peter Sellers and Sophia Loren's "Goodness Gracious Me", Bernard Cribbins's "Right Said Fred" and a 10" Danny Kaye LP, Pure Delight - but those days do appear to represent a mini-golden age for mirthful platters. The songs that have made me laugh since I gave up short pants have almost all been parodies of specific records or whole musical genres.

Besides, "Canyons of Your Mind", the Bonzo Dog Band also nailed Elvis-influenced rock 'n' roll to a T with another track so good, a band named themselves after it:

Around the time the Bonzos were at their peak, I had a friend who was a bit of a whizz at musical parodies (I used to help out a bit). We especially enjoyed satirising hippy nonsense, so I was delighted, in 1975, when I first heard the National Lampoon's Lemmings album, a recording of a 1973 San Francisco stage show which mercilessly mocked Woodstock - the event, the generation and, in particular, its musical stars. I've just found a video of the whole damn thing on You Tube. The language is obscene, a lot of the comedy doesn't work, and it probably won't mean a thing to anyone under 50, but five of the songs still make me laugh out loud, including: Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young (or Freud, Pavlov, Adler & Jung) performing “Lemmings’ Lament” at 2’00”; Joni Mitchell at 10’50”; some politically-conscious Temptations-style Motown with "Papa Was a Running Dog Lackey of The Bourgeoisie" at 20’00”, immediately followed by James Taylor with “Highway Toes” at 22’40” (“shooting up the highway on the roadmap of my wrists”); Joan Baez at 37’00” (“so many grievous wrongs for me to right with tedious songs”); and the best of the lot - Joe Cocker with “Lonely at The Bottom (of a Barrell) at 41’15”.

Strangely, Australia was the only country where the Hee Bee Gee Bees' "Meaningless Songs in Very High Voices" was a hit in 1980:

The British parody kings of the 1980s were the Not The Nine O'Clock News team. First, they did over the New Romantics:

Then punk rock:

And then 2-Tone:

"The Day Today" managed to sandwich three billiant song parodies into a few brief minutes in the early 1990s - Nirvana, George Formby (singing "Subterranean Homesick Blues") and Rap Music:

In 1997, Steve Coogan gave us one of his greatest (albeit relatively short-lived) creations - nauseating Portuguese easy-listening star, Tony Ferrino. All of the following songs were featured in one  glorious programme - the magnificent The Tony Ferrino Phenomenon: 

(My favourite Ferrino song was "Valley of Our Souls", which can be heard here.)

I know there are lots of others worth hearing - but that's probably more than enough for now.