Allan Sherman, comedy writer and television producer who became famous as a song parodist in the early 1960s, was born 98 years ago today.
Sherman’s first album, My Son, the Folk Singer (1962), became the fastest-selling record album up to that time. His biggest hit single, "Hello Muddah, Hello Fadduh," a comic novelty in which a boy describes his summer camp experiences to the tune of Ponchielli's Dance of the Hours.
Born in Chicago to Jewish American parents — Percy Copelon and Rose Sherman — Sherman, like his father, suffered from obesity. His parents divorced during his teenage years, and Allan adopted his mother's maiden name. Due to his parents constantly moving to new residences, young Sherman attended over a dozen public schools in Chicago, New York, Los Angeles and Miami.
Shereman attended the University of Illinois, where he earned mostly "C" grades and contributed a humor column to The Daily Illini, the college newspaper. He never received a degree because he was expelled for breaking into a campus sorority house with his then-girlfriend.
He devised a game show he intended to call “I Know a Secret.” Mark Goodson, a television producer, used Sherman's idea and turned it into “I've Got a Secret,” which ran on CBS from 1952 to 1967. Rather than paying him for the concept, Mark Goodson-Bill Todman Productions made Sherman the show's producer.
Sherman was reported to be warm and kindhearted to all who worked for him. But sparks often flew between Sherman and anyone who was in a position to try to restrain his creativity. As producer of I've Got a Secret, which was broadcast live, he showed a fondness for large scale stunts that had the potential to teeter on the brink of disaster.
He once released 100 rabbits onstage as an Easter surprise for the Madison Square Boys Club, whose members were seated in the studio. The boys were invited to come up onstage to collect their prize. Although the resultant melee made a good story, it did not necessarily make for good TV.
The relationship between Mark Goodson-Bill Todman and Sherman became strained to the breaking point when he finally fought to execute an idea that was destined to fall flat. His plan was to have Tony Curtis teach the panel how to play some of the games he had played as a child growing up in New York City.
The problems manifested themselves when it became obvious that Tony Curtis had never actually played any of the games that Sherman had brought the props for. The situation might have been salvaged had the props worked as planned, but they did not.
The handkerchief parachute failed to open and land gracefully and the spool "tank" which was propelled by rubber band moved painfully slowly. The spot, which aired June 11, 1958, was a disaster and Sherman was fired as producer.
Sherman lived in the Brentwood section of West Los Angeles next door to Harpo Marx, who invited him to perform his song parodies at parties attended by Marx's show-biz friends.
After one party, George Burns phoned an executive at Warner Bros. Records and persuaded him to sign Sherman to a contract. The result was a long playing album of these parodies, My Son, the Folk Singer, which was released in 1962. It sold over a million copies.
The album was so successful that it was quickly followed by My Son, the Celebrity, which ended with "Shticks of One and Half a Dozen of the Other." In 1962, capitalizing on his success, Jubilee Records re-released Sherman's 1951 single on the album, More Folk Songs by Allan Sherman and His Friends.
It was a compilation of material by various Borscht Belt comedians, such as Sylvia Froos, Fyvush Finkle and Lee Tully, along with the Sherman material. One track, a spoof of summer camp entitled "Hello Muddah, Hello Fadduh," became a surprise novelty hit, reaching #2 on the national Billboard Hot 100 chart for three weeks in late summer 1963.
The lyrics were sung to the tune of one segment of Ponchielli's "Dance of the Hours," familiar to the public because of its use in the Walt Disney film, Fantasia. That December, Sherman's "The Twelve Gifts of Christmas" single appeared on Billboard's separate Christmas chart.
Sherman had one other Top 40 hit, a 1965 take-off on the Petula Clark hit, "Downtown," called "Crazy Downtown," which spent one week at #40.
Sherman's career success was short-lived. After peaking in 1963, his popularity declined rather quickly.
After the assassination of John F. Kennedy, impersonator Vaughn Meader vowed to never again do a Kennedy impression, and perhaps because of this ominous shadow – Meader was a very popular parody impressionist of the day – and the resulting reluctance to book such acts, the public saw less of Sherman's type of comedy.
Late in his life, Sherman drank and ate heavily which resulted in a dangerous weight gain. He later developed diabetes and struggled with lung disease. In 1966, his wife, Dee, filed for divorce and received full custody of their son and daughter.
Sherman lived on unemployment benefits for a time and moved into the Motion Picture & Television Country House and Hospital near Calabasas, California for a short time to lose weight.
He died of emphysema at home in West Hollywood in 1973 — ten days before his 49th birthday.