Perhaps my lack of familiarity with obscure flexi-discs was the reason why I don’t appreciate this one, but the release rambles around and doesn’t quite go anywhere. It’s a mix of Shallow Gravy moving on from their jacket phase to Beatles covers and Hammer and Publick performing their repertoire of supporting cast members reading excerpts that may or may not be loosely connected to them.

Some of the selections are solid choices; Hunter N. Gathers reads from Burroughs (probably because Thompson would have been too on the nose) and Colonel Gentleman reads the Futurist Manifesto and then Scots it up for a Robert Burns poem, but others (like Hank’s) come across as the writers just picking something because it’d be fun to hear the actors read those songs/poems. It’s a bit disappointing, but thankfully it’s not the last song they did; instead, they went out with one of my favorite moments involving The Monarchs.

Best VB change from the original: Shore Leave: “SPHINX!” Doc Hammer’s enthusiastic delivery of that line always makes me smile.

Download it here!

“Baby It’s Cold In Here”

I’m a sucker for both call and response songs and Christmas songs, which means I’m constantly struggling over “Baby It’s Cold Outside.” The instrumental part is fun and the overlapping call and response sound is beautiful. But then there’s the lyrics and the fact that the two roles are called “wolf” and “mouse” and… yeah. Problematic is putting it lightly. Even with the role of the wolf played by a woman it’s still a disturbing song and rewritings of the song don’t necessarily work out. Kirby Krackle and The Doubleclicks’ “Baby it’s Hoth Outside” attempts to rework it into a sex-positive feminist take with Leia as the wolf and Han as the mouse, but ends up being a highly misogynistic song that views Leia as an evil shrew on par with how Tommy Wiseau sees Lisa in The Room (which is quite disappointing given how positive The Doubleclicks’ “Nothing to Prove” is).