PURPLE PEOPLE EATER MOVIE SERIES

The coolest part of the film is Sheb Wooley’s role as the antagonist. Not bad for a silly song that began with an even sillier riddle. Later, the Minnesota Vikings defensive line would adopt the moniker “The Purple People Eaters” in tribute to the song. The original song inspired a few answer songs and follow up tunes including the Big Bopper’s “ The Purple People Eater meets the Witch Doctor” and Wooley’s own “ Santa Claus meets the Purple People Eater.” Two popular figurines of the character arrived the same year-the Miller Purple People Eater and the best-selling porcelain purple people eater monster from Hagen Renaker. The entry for the song in Stephen Odinofski’s The Golden Age of Novelty Song talks about the song inspiring an array of merchandise-like horned hats and t-shirts featuring the monster-and even a type of ice cream. Nonetheless, “Purple People Eater” topped the charts for six weeks.

When the song was finished, the label initially refused to promote it, but they changed their tune pretty quickly when-due to scheduling conflicts while shooting Rawhide-Sheb Wooley was unavailable to promote the song.

Everything ends with the monster yelling “Tequila!” as the sax solo comes to a conclusion-an obvious dedication to the 1958 Champs classic of the same name. In the middle of the song, the chorus state What is the significance of short shorts here? Nothing, really-it’s just a sly reference to 1957’s “ Short Shorts” by the Royal Teens. The song pays homage to a few other popular novelty numbers of the day as well. He utilized the same technique for the sped-up saxophone solo at the end of the tune. Similar to the way Ross Bagdasarian recorded the voices of the Witch Doctor and the Chipmunks, Wooley recorded his own voice at a reduced speed, then played back at normal speed to create the vocal parts of the monster itself. Maybe it was the fad of sped-up vocals that helped propel the song into America’s collective conscience. Perhaps it was the juvenile and silly nature of the song that accounted for its success. Other, more sensible heads considered this piece even worse than the ballads Wooley had just sung, but the man in charge liked it, so MGM allowed Sheb to record the demo. He thought it was one of the best things he’d ever heard. Wooley was probably as surprised as anyone when it turned out the president of MGM’s record division loved his silly song. He said he had a song that was ‘the bottom of the barrel’ and proceeded to sing ‘The Purple People Eater.’ Within three weeks of its release, it was the number one song in America. Per The Billboard Book of #1 Hits:Īfter singing all his ballads, Sheb was asked what else he had. Despite his friend’s lack of faith in the song, Wooley finished writing it and turned it into “what even he thought was undoubtedly the worst song he had ever written.”ĭuring a break from shooting Rawhide, he met with executives at MGM to audition a few new ballads. Per Ace Collins’ Disco Duck and Other Adventures in Novelty Music, Wooley tried to get Robertson to help him write the song to no avail. According to Crouse, “The riddle was so stupid, so juvenile, that the pair couldn’t help but laugh at it.” Robertson-who wrote a great deal of country and pop songs for the likes of Elvis Presley, among others-told Wooley the now famous riddle.

In Who Wrote the Book of Love, author Richard Crouse tells the story of how Wooley was taking a break during the shooting of the Rawhide pilot episodes and decided to have a meal with his old friend, songwriter Don Robertson. He’d already written a few by the time he had that fateful dinner with Robertson.

PURPLE PEOPLE EATER MOVIE SERIES

As a kid in Oklahoma, he dreamed of being a singing cowboy, but eventually found work in a series of western films and the television series Rawhide. Sheb Wooley was no stranger to writing novelty songs. How a silly, one-time joke became one of the greatest novelty records of all time

Purple people eater movie