MICHAEL McKEAN
Michael McKean (born October 17, 1947) is an American actor, comedian, and musician, known for a variety of roles played since the 1970s. McKean’s first big role was playing annoying neighbor Lenny Kosnowski on the sitcom Laverne & Shirley. In the mid-1990s he was a repertory cast member on Saturday Night Live. He has played roles in several Christopher Guest ensemble films, particularly as David St. Hubbins, lead vocalist and co-lead guitarist of the fictional rock band Spinal Tap in This Is Spinal Tap. He co-wrote the song “A Mighty Wind” (from the film of the same name), which won a Grammy Award, as well as “A Kiss at the End of the Rainbow” from the same film, which was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Song. (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)
