HARRY SHEARER
Harry Shearer (born December 23, 1943) is an American actor, voice actor, comedian, writer, musician, radio host, director, and producer. He is known for his long-running roles on The Simpsons, his work on Saturday Night Live, the comedy band Spinal Tap, and his radio program Le Show. Shearer co-created, co-wrote and co-starred in the 1984 film This Is Spinal Tap, a satirical rockumentary, which became a cult hit. In 1989, Shearer joined the cast of The Simpsons; he provides voices for numerous characters, including Mr. Burns, Waylon Smithers, Principal Skinner, Ned Flanders, Reverend Lovejoy, Kent Brockman, Dr. Hibbert, and more. (More from Wikipedia)
At the beginning of “(Santa’s Got a) Bomb for Whitey” by the Lovemasters is a bit of wacky but intriguing dialogue. I found precisely one reference to it on the Internet, a blog post by A. Templeton Goff answering a question about a different skit. He says: “[It is by] the Credibility Gap, the first group that featured Harry Shearer, Michael McKean, and David Lander (McKean’s partner from Laverne & Shirley). It’s from their album A Great Gift Idea. . . . Pretty hard to come by these days (it’s never been released on tape or CD), but it’s well worth the effort to find. IMHO, it ranks with National Lampoon’s Radio Dinner, Firesign Theatre’s Don’t Crush That Dwarf, Hand Me The Pliers, and Stan Freberg’s United States of America as one of the all-time great comedy albums.”
As laid out by A. Templeton Goff, the dialogue is taken from a sketch by the Credibility Gap called “Kingpin”, the story of Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. if told in a “blaxploitation” film. (Only the first two lines plus the fistfight are actually on the Lovemasters album):
BUS DRIVER: Sorry, fella, you’ll have to get to the back of this bus.
KINGPIN: Listen, you honky-donkey! No one tells Kingpin to get back!
(Sounds of a fistfight)
BUS DRIVER: I . . . I thought you were nonviolent, Kingpin!
KINGPIN: Sure, man. Only when I’m . . . dreamin’!
(March 2016)
