MARTIAN HOP
“Martian Hop” is a song written by the Ran-Dells which was released in 1963. It has been described as a one-hit wonder novelty song, and it reached #27 on the black singles chart and #16 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart. The song was later covered by Rocky Sharpe and the Replays as well as by Joanie Bartels. (More from Wikipedia)
“Rip Van Winkle” wasn’t as good as a later novelty hit that I absolutely loved – “Martian Hop” by the Ran-Dells – and I had a connection there also: There was a TV show called My Favorite Martian where the Martian (played by Ray Walston) was named “Uncle Martin”. There weren’t too many Martin’s in the world back then, at least that I knew about. I even created little antennae (bent from the wire that bound the newspapers together for my paper route) that I wore behind my ears to class; they were supposed to be like the ones that would rise up from Walston’s head from time to time when he was doing his Martian thing.
(March 2012)
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It is not really a rare event for a song to come out of nowhere and grab the zeitgeist – that’s virtually the definition of a novelty song – but there have been a host of songs that are just as sideways compared to the recording charts at the time without truly being of the novelty variety. I have written of several in previous posts: the Trashmen’s 1963 hit “Surfin’ Bird”, the Ran-Dells’ “Martian Hop” (also from 1963), and “Rip Van Winkle” by the Devotions from 1961. They were among my very favorite songs for years after I first heard them, so it is easy to see that I am partial to this kind of song.
(March 2013)
