Dickie Goodman's first known release came in 1952, when he was just 18 years old. Under the name "Dick Good",
Chess Records released his version of
Johnny Standley's comic monologue "
It's in the Book". In June 1956, in partnership with
Bill Buchanan, he made his first hit record, "
The Flying Saucer Parts 1 & 2", a take-off of
Orson Welles'
War of the Worlds. This recording was the subject of a
copyright infringement case against Goodman. The court ruled that his sampled mix was a parody and thus an entirely new work. The single peaked at No. 3 on
Billboard and was Goodman's highest-charting single. Since Part 2 was on the B side of the vinyl record, Disc Jockeys had to flip the record over to complete the broadcast of the two tracks. Hence the recording(s) became known as "The Flying Saucer Parts 1 and 2." While other famous music artists have charted flip sides of records containing a completely different and separate song, it was extremely rare to chart with two sides of a record with it only being considered as one. Two months later, there was a re-release as "Back To Earth". Buchanan and Goodman followed up with other records. "Buchanan and Goodman on Trial", originally entitled "Public Opinion", reached #80 in 1956. "Banana Boat Story" featured the duo using a song, the Tarriers' "Banana Boat Song", as a break-in spoof of broadcast commercials. "Flying Saucer the 2nd" reached #18 in 1957, "
Santa and the Satellite (Parts I & II)" reached #32 in 1957, and "Frankenstein Of `59" / "Frankenstein Returns" was released in February 1959. The two men ended their partnership in 1959. There were some lawsuits filed against Buchanan and Goodman for the use of unlicensed materials. They had operated their business from a telephone booth at a pharmacy. Although they got richer, the court cases ate up the profits. In 1959, collaborating with Mickey Shorr under the names Spencer and Spencer, Goodman recorded two singles which relied much less on sampling and more on
sketch comedy. "Russian Bandstand" was a re-imagining of the TV series
American Bandstand set in the
Soviet Union. "Stagger Lawrence" imposed
Lloyd Price's recording of "
Stagger Lee" onto a spoof of
The Lawrence Welk Show, borrowing heavily from an earlier Welk parody done by
Stan Freberg. Neither recording was as popular as the recordings Goodman made with Buchanan. Starting in 1961 as a solo artist, Dickie Goodman scored three
Billboard Hot 100 hits based on the hit TV series
The Untouchables: "The Touchables" (#60), "The Touchables in Brooklyn" (#42), and "Santa and the Touchables" (#99). He also performed several of his own Halloween-themed songs with Rori; eventually these were released as an album, the most successful track being "Horror Movies", about favorite pop culture movie monsters. The song has recently been revived as background music in several films and venues, including
Adam Sandler's
Hubie Halloween on
Netflix,
Amazon Prime series
The Lake,
Disney/
HULU series
Extraordinary and Universal Orlando's Halloween Nights. In 1962, Goodman spoofed
Ben Casey with "Ben Crazy" (#44 on
Billboard). In 1966, his spoof of
Batman resulted in "Batman & His Grandmother" (#70). He also released a full album,
The Many Heads Of Dickie Goodman, which included most of his break-ins to date. In 1963 while working at 20th Century Fox Records, Goodman recorded (
John F Kennedy The Presidential Years), a tribute composed of Kennedy's famous speeches. It was named number eight of
Billboard's "Albums of the Year." and has been archived by The Henry Ford Museum. In 1964, Goodman switched from break-in records to parodies and recorded an album called
My Son the Joke. The title was a take-off of
Allan Sherman popular comedy records. Goodman's material was more risque than Sherman's, with such songs as "Harry's Jockstrap", featuring his wife Susan, to the tune of "
Frère Jacques"). The album failed to chart. In the late 1960s, Goodman recorded a mostly musical album featuring his wife, entitled
Dickie Goodman and His Wife Susan. Goodman sang on one track on the record, "Never Play Poker with a Man Named Doc (or Eat at a Place Called Mom's)", paraphrasing
Nelson Algren's novel
A Walk on the Wild Side). He produced two break-in style pieces and his wife sang the rest of the songs. In 1969, Goodman parodied the political unrest on college campuses with "On Campus" (#45 on
Billboard) and the
first Moon landing with "Luna Trip" (#95).
Vik Venus's "
Moonflight", which imitated Goodman's break-in style, reached #38 on 9 August 1969, much higher than "On Campus" one week after the latter peaked. Goodman's records also inspired
KQV morning disc jockey Bob DeCarlo's top 10 hit "Convention '72" under the name
the Delegates. Goodman himself spoofed political issues such as the
Watergate scandal with "
Watergrate" (#42 in 1973), the energy crisis with "
Energy Crisis '74" (#33 in 1974), and
Richard Nixon with "Mr. President" (#73 in 1974). Goodman released a different version of "Mr. President" in 1981 after
Ronald Reagan became president, but this recording did not chart. Goodman also produced recordings for other acts.
John & Ernest's "Superfly Meets Shaft" (#31 in 1973), while made for a black audience, retained Goodman's "break-in" format. He created the Glass Bottle, a pop band, primarily as an advertising ploy to promote glass bottles, which soda companies were replacing with plastic bottles. The Glass Bottle recorded two singles, both straight pop songs; one of them, "
I Ain't Got Time Anymore", hit #36 in 1971. In 1974, Goodman anonymously released
Screwy T.V., an album of risque parodies of then-popular TV shows. This album proved less popular than
My Son the Joke, as many record shops kept it "under the counter" because its cover showed two nude models (reportedly Susan and Dickie Goodman themselves) seen from the rear. In 1975, Goodman parodied the film
Jaws with "
Mr. Jaws" (#4 on
Billboard). It was his biggest-selling record, earning a
R.I.A.A. gold record in September 1975. The record shot to No. 1 on 11 October 1975 on Chicago's
WLS, who played a customized version featuring "This is Dickie Goodman at WLS ..." at the beginning. "Mr. Jaws" also charted in the Top Ten in Great Britain and won a
Juno Award in Canada. Goodman's final chart record was "Kong" (#48 on
Billboard in 1977), a spoof of the 1976 remake of
King Kong. It was followed by others that failed to make the Top 100. "Hey ET", based on
Spielberg's movie
E.T. the Extraterrestrial, was Dickie Goodman's last release to reach Billboard's Bubbling Under chart (Top 200). Altogether, Goodman charted seventeen hits, with five of them reaching the
top 40.
Joel Whitburn's
Top Pop Singles listed Dickie Goodman's
Billboard ranking at #1 (17 in the Top 100) for Comedy, and
Guinness World Records certified him for the most charted comedy hits (seventeen) on
Billboard. Goodman produced several other break-in records which garnered airplay and charted only in a few regions, including Los Angeles and New York City. Luniverse, Goodman's
record label, also featured works by other artists, including the
Del-Vikings. Among his other labels were Eldorado (mostly used for singers like Joann Campbell), All Star (also used for singers and bands), Novelty, Comic, Cash, Rainy Wednesday, Oron, Ramgo (created with his new partner, Bill Ramal), M.D., JMD, Shark, Wacko, Extran and Goodname. Goodman's break-in records were themselves spoofed by
Albert Brooks in a comedy bit called "Party from Outer Space." In 2001 Dickie Goodman was awarded a posthumous GRAMMY award from NARAS for his original hit, The Flying Saucer Pt. 1 and Pt. 2 thanks to its inclusion by RHINO Records President, Richard Foos on Brain In A Box: The Science Fiction Collection. ==Death==