Results: Weird Music Wednesday: Gary S. Paxton (Part 1)

Gary S(anford). Paxton--born Larry Wayne Stevens--first found notoriety as a teenager in rock'n' roll's late 1950's boom as one half of Skip & Flip, a duo who scored big with the Everly Brothers-esque "It Was I" in '59 (I believe it's Paxton on the left in the picture with the accompanying music clip). However, before Skip & Flip's one biggie, the duo recorded under their actual (?) names as Gary And Clyde, the second-listed partner being Clyde Battin, a then-future member of The Byrds as Skip Battin . Which name do you prefer for an act whose music you'd like to hear?

Skip & Flip may have become a two-hit wonder (their second, "Cherry Pie," peaked in the US at #11), but Paxton rebounded nicely as a member and producer of a studio band who recorded a screwy, but influential, novelty hit. I've already asked about The Hollywood Argyles "Alley Oop," a US #1 pop single in 1960, in a previous poll (https://www.tellwut.com/surveys/current-affairs/news/124044-alley-oop-oop-oop-oop-oop-.html). But, in an effort to catch lightning in a bottle again, Paxton, billed as Gary Paxton, sang of the the same comic strip cave man the Argyles' lauded in an ode to the character's haircare regimen, "Alley Oop Was A Two-Dab Man." Lightning went uncaptured that time. But are there any other follow-up songs to hits you like as well or more than the probably better-known tune that preceded it?

Eclipsing "Alley Oop" however, was arguably Paxton's biggest as a producer. He helmed the studio board for Bobby "Boris" Pickett & The Crypt-Kickers' 1962 US pop #1 hit, "Monster Mash," which also cracked the top ten 11 years later. It's become a a Hallowe'en perennial popular enough to have received 2,,000,000 Spotify plays a year as of 2001. Have you ever attended-or hosted--a Trick Or Treat Day party where "Monster Mash" was played or sung?

Lest anyone think Paxton was only capable of involving himself in funny ditties, he produced numerous enduring hits still heard on oldies radio (on stations whose playlists go back that far nowadays, anyway). Which of the following do you like, remember and/or would like to hear?

Another of Paxton's novelty-oriented productions, a series of silly pachyderm jokes set to music entitled "Elephant Game" and credited to Renfro & Jackson, led to his arrest. Actually, it was Paxton's promotional stunt for it that to his too-close encounter with police After a Los Angeles pop radio music directors passed on the record for being "too black," Paxton organized a Hollywood Boulevard parade featuring 15 cheerleaders and one elephant pulling a Vokswagen convertible...who got scared and defecated on the street, leading to Paxton's violation. Which would you rather experience?