POP-A-LOOZA: JUKEBOX EXPRESS An imaginary soundtrack album for a film that never existed

Each week, the pop culture website Pop-A-Looza shares some posts from my vast 'n' captivating Boppin' (Like The Hip Folks Do) archives. The latest shared post is a study of an imaginary soundtrack for a film that never existed: Jukebox Express.

My concept of Jukebox Express, a wholly fabricated 1958 rock 'n' roll flick I made up outta nothing, was first introduced with this post in 2018:

"What is Jukebox Express? And how in the world does it combine That Thing You Do!, King Kong, I Love Lucy, Happy Days, The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, Gilligan's Island, My Favorite Year, Singin' In The Rain, Three Amigos!, an instrumental by the Fleshtones, Charles Chaplin's Limelight, Bye Bye Birdie, The Dick Van Dyke Show, Room Service, Batman: The Animated Series, Beyond The Valley Of The Dolls, Pleasantville, The Honeymooners, the 1970s Ellery Queen TV series, Back To The Future, Weird War Tales, the Marvel Cinematic Universe, Animal House, The Girl Can't Help It, the pilot episode of The Monkees, King Creole, The Andy Griffith Show, John Waters' Cry-Baby, Please Don't Eat The Daisies!, The Beverly Hillbillies, Twin Peaks, The Rocketeer, WKRP In Cinncinati, and Funnyman?

"I don't know yet. I won't know unless or until I write it. Oughtta be fun."

It was fun to concoct, and I retain a giddy sense of satisfaction in the resulting work. Its chronicle was revealed here, and a guide to its previously-existing fictional players can be seen here. 

In the broad, specialized category of writing about music that does not exist, I put together a fake This Is Rock n' Roll Radio playlist built from that very idea, and I followed with an annotated guide to that playlist. I also wrote a fictional biography of the Archies, a fantasy about a 1976 Beatles reunion concert, a what-if examination of my favorite power pop group the Flashcubes becoming stars, the first few pages of a Green Hornet story idea about the death of a young rock 'n' roll star in 1966, some snarky riffing on imaginary musical combos, and a pair of short stories about rock 'n' roll, the unsold "Home Of The Hits" and the fabulously successful "Guitars Vs. Rayguns."

Plainly, I like music, and I like makin' stuff up. We have yet another example of that today, as Jukebox Express, an imaginary soundtrack for a film that never existed, is the latest Boppin' Pop-A-Looza.

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You can support this blog by becoming a patron on Patreon: Fund me, baby! 

This Is Rock 'n' Roll Radio with Dana & Carl airs Sunday nights from 9 to Midnight Eastern, on the air in Syracuse at SPARK! WSPJ 103.3 and 93.7 FM, and on the web at http://sparksyracuse.org/ You can read about our history here.

The many fine This Is Rock 'n' Roll Radio compilation albums are still available, each full of that rockin' pop sound you crave. A portion of all sales benefit our perpetually cash-strapped community radio project:

Volume 1: download
Volume 2: CD or download
Volume 3: download
Volume 4: CD or download
Waterloo Sunset--Benefit For This Is Rock 'n' Roll Radio:  CD or download

I'm on Twitter @CafarelliCarl.

JUKEBOX EXPRESS: An imaginary soundtrack album for a film that never existed

Jukebox Express is an imaginary 1958 rock 'n' roll movie, something that exists only in my mind. I created Jukebox Express for this blog in 2018, born of a notion to concoct a jukebox flick made entirely by preexisting fictional characters. The made-up individuals who made Jukebox Express--the producer, the director, the writers, the stars, the musical acts, even the guy writing the look back at this movie that never was--are drawn from many different pop culture properties, including Gilligan's Island, That Thing You Do!, The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, Marvel Comics, Happy Days, Singin' In The Rain, Room Service, I Love Lucy, The Monkees, Batman: The Animated Series, My Favorite Year, Ellery Queen, King Creole, Animal House, Back To The Future, The Girl Can't Help It, WKRP In Cincinnati, Bye Bye Birdie, The Andy Griffith Show, King Kong, and more. You can read the Jukebox Express piece here, and see a guide to its make-believe players here.

But...man! I forgot to do a Jukebox Express album. So I've remedied that oversight. Here 'tis:

JUKEBOX EXPRESS Original Motion Picture Soundtrack

Produced by HOWARD STARK with TONY MILLER

Howard Stark Records, 1958

SIDE ONE:

1. LEATHER TUSCADERO: Jukebox Express

2. OTIS DAY AND THE KNIGHTS: Shake And Shout

3. RICKY RICARDO: Babalu

4. KATHY SELDEN AND CHRISTINE MARLOWE: Jukebox Rumba

5. LEATHER TUSCADERO AND CONRAD BIRDIE (with BOBBY FLEET AND HIS BAND WITH A BEAT): Fever

6. DANNY FISHER: Jukebox Rock

7. LEATHER TUSCADERO: Devil Gate Drive 

SIDE TWO:

1. LEATHER TUSCADERO WITH OTIS DAY AND THE KNIGHTS: All Aboard

2. BOBBY FLEET AND HIS BAND WITH A BEAT: The Train Kept A-Rollin'

3. CONRAD BIRDIE: Honestly Sincere

4. GINGER GRANT: Someday He'll Notice Me

5. LEATHER TUSCADERO WITH OTIS DAY AND THE KNIGHTS: You Could Be My Baby

6. LEATHER TUSCADERO AND GINGER GRANT: More Kisses For You And For Me

7. LEATHER TUSCADERO: Nothing Stops This Train

At fourteen tracks, this is probably a little bit long for a 1950s beat music soundtrack LP, but if we're suspending disbelief anyway, I say what the hell. I still left out a couple of artists established to have appeared in this imaginary movie, specifically the Cry-Baby Combo and producer-inventor Howard Stark's favorites Sven Helmstrom and his Rhythm Kings. One presumes a 21st-century expanded reissue of the album would have added those as bonus tracks, along with more soundtrack delights by the movie's star Leather Tuscadero and more hot performances by Otis Day and the Knights. Maybe something by Shy Baldwin, too.

While the album is almost entirely fabricated, three of its tracks do exist in our mundane real world. Suzi Quatro, in character as rocker Leather Tuscadero, lip-synced her own 1974 number "Devil Gate Drive" on an episode of Happy Days; that's the sort of anachronism I'd prefer to avoid in a period-specific fancy like Jukebox Express, but it's also established canon for the character--i.e., we've seen that this character sang this song at Arnold's Drive-In in 1950s Milwaukee--so it's fair game. Shag haircut notwithstanding. As Ricky Ricardo, Desi Arnaz sang "Babalu" on I Love Lucy, and Broadway cast and motion picture soundtrack albums of Bye Bye Birdie give us Conrad Birdie singing "Honestly Sincere."

Otherwise, this soundtrack album imagines tracks that could have been made for the movie. "Fever" and "The Train Kept A-Rollin'" are covers of real-world '50s songs, and the rest are my inventions. "All Aboard" is not the Chuck Berry song of the same name, but woulda been if ol' Chuck had written it in '58 rather than '63. Ginger Grant's "Someday He'll Notice Me" shows the film's heroine Kirby Lee pining for the clueless mail lead Archibald Toby (played by Troy Chesterfield), while the Leather-Otis Day collaboration "You Could Be My Baby" and the Leather-Ginger duet "More Kisses For You And For Me" imply an interracial rendezvous and a girl-girl (or girl-boy-girl) relationship, respectively. 

Again, Jukebox Express does not exist, has never existed, and could never exist. But I wish it did. I want to see this movie. And now, I wanna hear its soundtrack.

But, in the words of Mama Mamammia (played by Sophie Lennon) and Kirby Lee: That's rock 'n' roll. And that's the end.

TIP THE BLOGGER: CC's Tip Jar!

You can support this blog by becoming a patron on Patreon: Fund me, baby! 

This Is Rock 'n' Roll Radio with Dana & Carl airs Sunday nights from 9 to Midnight Eastern, on the air in Syracuse at SPARK! WSPJ 103.3 and 93.7 FM, and on the web at http://sparksyracuse.org/ You can read about our history here.

The many fine This Is Rock 'n' Roll Radio compilation albums are still available, each full of that rockin' pop sound you crave. A portion of all sales benefit our perpetually cash-strapped community radio project:

Volume 1: download
Volume 2: CD or download
Volume 3: download
Volume 4: CD or download
Waterloo Sunset--Benefit For This Is Rock 'n' Roll Radio:  CD or download

I'm on Twitter @CafarelliCarl.

POP-A-LOOZA: JUKEBOX EXPRESS (a fabricated film not actually made in 1958)

Rock 'n' roll star Leather Tuscadero in Jukebox Express

Every week, the pop culture website Pop-A-Looza shares some posts from my vast 'n' captivating Boppin' (Like The Hip Folks Do) archives. The latest shared post is my fantasy of a fictional 1958 rock 'n' roll movie I call Jukebox Express.

Comic Sophie Lennon played Rose "Mama" Mammamia in Jukebox Express.
Put THAT on yer plate!

I created Jukebox Express in 2018. It was prompted by watching actress Jane Lynch as fictional 1950s comic Sophie Lennon in the TV series The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel. While the TV show (one of my favorites) spotlights an up and coming fictional stand-up comic who bills herself as Mrs. Maisel, Lynch's role as Lennon prompted my mind to wander to the film That Thing You Do!, which also tells a story of imaginary entertainers. That movie takes place in 1964, six years after Maisel meets Lennon in The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel. I didn't really think of Sophie Lennon interacting with That Thing You Do!'s made-up teen sensations The Wonders. But what about an older character from the film, an equally-fictional figure who may have been active in the entertainment industry in 1958? Troy Chesterfield! The screen actor who introduces The Wonders on national TV! What if Sophie Lennon and Troy Chesterfield had made a movie together in 1958?

Actor Troy Chesterfield

The rest just fell into place.

I wanted to patch together a 1958 jukebox flick made entirely by fictional characters we've already seen elsewhere, on TV, in movies, books, comic books, novels, whatever. They had to be characters who could have been active in 1958. Actress Ginger Grant from Gilligan's Island. Rock 'n' roller Leather Tuscadero from Happy Days. Inventor, industrialist, and film producer Howard Stark from Marvel Comics movies. Jukebox Express occurred to me as the inevitable title. 

On February 6th of 2018: I posted a tease for Jukebox Express:

"What is Jukebox Express? And how in the world does it combine That Thing You Do!, King Kong, I Love Lucy, Happy Days, The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, Gilligan's Island, My Favorite Year, Singin' In The Rain, Three Amigos!, an instrumental by The Fleshtones, Charles Chaplin's Limelight, Bye Bye Birdie, The Dick Van Dyke Show, Room Service, Batman: The Animated Series, Beyond The Valley Of The Dolls, Pleasantville, The Honeymooners, the 1970s Ellery Queen TV series, Back To The Future, Weird War Tales, the Marvel Cinematic Universe, Animal House, The Girl Can't Help It, the pilot episode of The Monkees, King Creole, The Andy Griffith Show, John Waters' Cry-Baby, Please Don't Eat The Daisies!, The Beverly Hillbillies, Twin Peaks, The Rocketeer, WKRP In Cincinnati, and Funnyman?

I don't know yet. I won't know unless or until I write it. Oughtta be fun."

Jukebox Express producer Howard Stark

And it was fun. I finished it in just over a week, and I had an absolute blast fabricating this nonsense. When it was done, I found myself with a longing wish that Jukebox Express could have been a real film that I could watch in between The Girl Can't Help It and A Hard Day's Night. The day after I posted Jukebox Express, I followed it with a complete guide to its fictional players, from Conrad Birdie, Stan "King" Kaiser, and George McFly to Kathy Selden, Ricky Ricardo, Alan Brady, and Otis Day and the Knights. That's rock 'n' roll! And that's the end.

Stan "King" Kaiser as Rocco "Death" Manzetti in Jukebox Express

Should I apologize for exuberance and joy in my own stuff? Not this time. Screw it. I am stupid proud of Jukebox Express. Fine, diagramming that sentence leaves us only with the admission that "I am stupid." It's nonetheless true that I really, really like Jukebox Express.

And I hope you will, too. Welcome to a rare screening of the lost 1958 rock 'n' roll movie Jukebox Express, the latest Boppin' Pop-A-Looza.

Actress Ginger Grant as Kirby Lee. A movie star!

TIP THE BLOGGER: CC's Tip Jar!

You can support this blog by becoming a patron on Patreon: Fund me, baby! 

This Is Rock 'n' Roll Radio with Dana & Carl airs Sunday nights from 9 to Midnight Eastern, on the air in Syracuse at SPARK! WSPJ 103.3 and 93.7 FM, and on the web at http://sparksyracuse.org/ You can read about our history here.

The many fine This Is Rock 'n' Roll Radio compilation albums are still available, each full of that rockin' pop sound you crave. A portion of all sales benefit our perpetually cash-strapped community radio project:

Volume 1: download

Volume 2: CD or download

Volume 3: download

Volume 4: CD or download

Waterloo Sunset--Benefit For This Is Rock 'n' Roll Radio:  CD or download

Carl's writin' a book! The Greatest Record Ever Made! (Volume 1) will contain 155 essays about 155 tracks, each one of 'em THE greatest record ever made. An infinite number of records can each be the greatest record ever made, as long as they take turns. Updated initial information can be seen here: THE GREATEST RECORD EVER MADE! (Volume 1).

Happy Birthday, JUKEBOX EXPRESS!

'50s rock 'n' roller Leather Tuscadero in Jukebox Express

Jukebox Express, the great 1958 rock 'n' roll B-movie starring Troy Chesterfield, Ginger Grant, Leather Tuscadero, Sophie Lennon, and Stan "King" Kaiser, is two years old today. And obviously, the reason a 1958 beat flick is only two years old in 2020 is because I made the whole thing up as a blog post for February 14th, 2018. 

Ginger Grant

This remains one of my favorite blog pieces, in spite of the fact that Google hasn't been a fan of it. More about that later. I explained the genesis and back story of Jukebox Express here; this introductory paragraph from that second piece summarizes what I had in mind:

My idea for Jukebox Express began as a random thought when I was watching the terrific Amazon Prime series The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, which is set in 1958. After I saw actress Jane Lynch's portrayal of a fictional comic named Sophie Lennon, my mind wandered somehow to the idea of Lennon meeting Troy Chesterfield, a fictional actor played by Peter Scolari in That Thing You Do! From there, my imagination started to cobble together the idea of bringing together various fictional thespians and show people for a fictional project. It had to take place in 1958 to include Sophie Lennon (because I don't know what, if anything, the creators of Mrs. Maisel have in store for her), so I had to think what other figures I could place into that specific timeline. The rest just snapped into place, and this make-believe rock 'n' roll movie Jukebox Express was duly fabricated.

Inventor, industrialist, and Jukebox Express producer Howard Stark

Hijinks ensued. I think the resulting Jukebox Express concoction is a hoot, and I hereby declare it to be absolute canon within the fictional milieus of The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, That Thing You Do!, Gilligan's Island, Happy Days, My Favorite Year, The Andy Griffith Show, King Creole, Room Service, Twin Peaks, Batman: The Animated Series, The Dick Van Dyke Show, Back To The Future, Animal House, The Girl Can't Help It, The Beverly Hillbillies, King Kong, The Honeymooners, The Monkees, Barney Miller, Singin' In The Rain, Ellery Queen, Funnyman, Three Amigos!, WKRP In Cinncinati, Beyond The Valley Of The Dolls, I Love Lucy, the Mallory novels by Max Allan Collins, Please Don't Eat The Daisies, Cry-Baby, Limelight, Weird War Tales, Pleasantville, The Rocketeer, Wordsmith, the Marvel Cinematic Universe, my own Eternity Man, an instrumental by The Fleshtones, and Murder, She Wrote. Canon. Gospel! Don't argue with a deranged blogger.

Troy Chesterfield on The Hollywood Television Showcase in 1964

I like it. Google hasn't shared my enthusiasm for it. The piece has been flagged repeatedly, and I never could determine what the objection was. This week, a thought occurred to me about a possible (and really silly) explanation of what the problem might have been. I made yet another minor tweak to fix it, and lo and behold! Jukebox Express has finally passed its audition. Can't say more without risk of takin' a can opener to a fresh tin of nightcrawlers. (Well, except to note that, believe it or not, it was kinda Trump's fault. Like I needed another reason to detest that guy.)

Stan "King" Kaiser as Rocco "Death" Manzetti in Jukebox Express

Meanwhile, I invite you to enter the world of a work of fiction I call Jukebox Express, and then to read the story of its origin. Lights! Camera! JUKEBOX EXPRESS!

The great Sophie Lennon. Put THAT on yer plate!

TIP THE BLOGGER: CC's Tip Jar!

You can support this blog by becoming a patron on Patreon: Fund me, baby! 

This Is Rock 'n' Roll Radio with Dana & Carl airs Sunday nights from 9 to Midnight Eastern, on the air in Syracuse at SPARK! WSPJ 103.3 and 93.7 FM, and on the web at http://sparksyracuse.org/ You can read about our history here.

The many fine This Is Rock 'n' Roll Radio compilation albums are still available, each full of that rockin' pop sound you crave. A portion of all sales benefit our perpetually cash-strapped community radio project:

Volume 1: download

Volume 2: CD or download

Volume 3: download

Volume 4: CD or download

Waterloo Sunset--Benefit For This Is Rock 'n' Roll Radio:  CD or download

Hey, Carl's writin' a book! The Greatest Record Ever Made! (Volume 1) will contain 133 essays about 133 tracks, each one of 'em THE greatest record ever made. An infinite number of records can each be the greatest record ever made, as long as they take turns. Updated initial information can be seen here: THE GREATEST RECORD EVER MADE! (Volume 1).