Monday, September 9, 2013

Hip to the hop, we are

Sometimes people say stuff to us. Like, "You know, you guys are always talking about musicians and music. Did it ever occur to you to form a band of your own?" Well, of course we formed a band! Didn't we mention that? I guess maybe we didn't. Huh. Sorry about that. Anyway, here's a brief history of that, how it ended and where we are now.
We had the idea a very long time ago to close out each of our adventures with a song that kind of summed up the case and that children could enjoy and learn from, an idea that was stolen by Fat Albert, The Archies, Josey and the Pussycats and The Groovy Ghoulies among others. We started out playing rock n roll but couldn't decide who would be the lead singer because we all wanted to be the lead singer. We tried that for a while, with all three of us being lead singers and a band of anonymous session musicians (The Unbelievatones) playing behind a curtain (so as not to distract people from looking at us).
As you might imagine, it was difficult in terms of cost and logistics to haul musicians and their instruments around the world with us, having them hang out at a hotel pool, waiting for us to wrap up a case so they could play a single song. Boy, were we happy to embrace rap music!
Some time around 1985, we fired the Unbelievatones, constructed the ultimate boombox (The Unbelievabox), got some parachute pants, wrote some dope freestyles and we were on our way to influencing the youth of the nation in a language they truly understand. We know it's effective because people have told us so. Like this letter we got a while back...
Dear Unbelieveables,
We used to be worried about our son Waldo and what he was doing with his life. He was a juvenile delinquent and we feared for his future. Then one day, a terrifying high-speed chase in our town ended with a drug dealer's car flipping over and exploding on our front lawn. We ran out of the house to see what was happening and we saw you three jump out of your expensive sports car and start rapping about how you shouldn't be a drug dealer unless you wanted to die burning in a hunk of twisted metal on somebody's suburban lawn. It obviously had a profound effect on Waldo as he stopped his illegal activities and became a professional DJ! Although, he is 33 now and still lives at home, which is not exactly ideal...

I get so choked up by that story that I've never been able to finish reading the whole thing. It's just so rewarding to know that we've had such an impact on the lives of young people, not only our actions but with our lyrical flow as well. For example, here's a verse that I wrote:
Well my name is Clark and I'm here to say
I fight against crime every single day
Crime is bad. I mean, it's no good
It decreases property values in your neighborhood.
Now, don't be a fool; stay in school.
It's the only way for you to be cool.
Help old ladies to cross the street
You can do it, to a funky beat
Pet stray doggies on the head
Make sure they've had rabies shots or you could be dead
Recycle all your bottles and cans
Don't make fun of Justin Bieber fans
Go to bed at a decent hour
Make sure you don't stink; take a shower
Above all else, you should try to be kind
Go downtown and read to the blind
Always eat your vegetables
If you wanna grow up to be Unbelievable
We have so much more to say
Let Jeff and Michael take it away!

I'll let the other guys take the opportunity to show off some of their amazing rhyming abilities over the next couple of days, yo.

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