Friday Night Record Party : Bob and Doug McKenzie: The Great White North

Bob and Doug McKenzie: The Great White North

1981

Mercury Records

Format I Own it on: Vinyl

Track Listing: 1. This is our album, eh? 2. The Beerhunter 3. School Announcements 4. The Miracle of Music 5. Peter's Donuts 6. Gimme A Smoke 7. Take Off 8. Coffee Sandwich 9. Welcome to Side Two 10. Doug's Mouth 11. Elron McKenzie 12. Black Holes 13. You Are Our Guest 14. Ernie's Mom 15. The Twelve Days of Christmas 16. Ralph The Dog 17. Okay, This is the End, eh? 18. Honest

Good gravy, I loved Bob and Doug McKenzie as a kid...

I remember watching and re-watching my videotapes of SCTV re-runs recorded from old school Nick at Night (back during the same era they would play Lancelot Link and the old Batman show) and being especially enamored with the Bob and Doug McKenzie sketches...For some unknown reason, I was enthralled by their exotic world, filled with beer, toques, and back bacon...Maybe it was my proximity to Canada growing up...Who knows...But I've always found it oddly comforting...

I also count "Strange Brew" as one of my all-time favorite movies...I swear to you that I've watched it at least one billion times and I still wonder if it's possible to survive underwater using the air in beer bottles...

In the 90's I started hearing "The Twelve Days of Christmas" on Z-93 during the holiday season...It would never fail to crack me up but I never really thought about where the track originated from....I figured it was some standalone Christmas single...It had never crossed my mind that Bob & Doug McKenzie had released an album, or else I would have dedicated my life to locating a copy...But one day I was combing the comedy section at Revolver Records (which always has a great selection of comedy records, BTW) and ran across this beauty...

The album can be broken down into one of three sections:

1. Songs: These will probably be the highlight of the album for most people...They're very succinct in encapsulating the duo's appeal...The aforementioned holiday song is a straight-up classic and the other track on here ("Take Off") is mighty fun too...I believe this is one of the only times I've willingly subjected myself to Geddy Lee (outside of the dozen or so times I've listened to the rap section of "Roll the Bones" which has similarly brought me much joy)...

Actually, now that I think about it, that's not true...I distinctly remember a copy of "Moving Pictures" rolling around my house as a youngster...I believe I tossed it on once or twice...Anyway, I prefer "Take Off" and the rap section of "Roll the Bones" over "Tom Sawyer"...Sue me...

2. Free-form rambling: The majority of the album can be classified as Rick Moranis and Dave Thomas using their characters as a springboard for lengthy, seemingly improved conversations...It's not so much that it's gut-bustingly hilarious (although it often is...Their using the metric system to calculate the amount of beers they drank is one of the funniest things I've ever heard) but it's endlessly entertaining...I could listen to their endless logic loops resolving themselves all day...Sometimes it gets pretty high concept (

Skits: There's a few tracks where they assume characters and the comedy has a bit more structure: in this category we have "School Announcements" where they assume the roles of High School Principals and "Elron McKenzie" where Doug plays a preacher who delivers a bizarre sermon on killing bugs or whatever...There's also a closing bedtime story that devolves into a dogfighting yarn... The album appropriately ends with the brothers running out of beer and back bacon...But just because their beer is running out, doesn't mean our is...