Help explain this Spike Jones joke about Lloyd Bridges!

October 5, 2019 6:21 PM

In the Spike Jones spoken word radio play/ comedy song "Ah 1 Ah 2 Sunset strip" there's a bit around 3:00 where the beatnik valet crashes the protagonist's car (it winds up in the water) and he says "Well [unintelligible to me} can always sell it to Lloyd Bridges." What does this joke refer to? I'm guessing it's probably a reference to some sort of pop culture ephemera which I'm too young to get.
posted by Larry David Syndrome to Media & Arts (6 answers total)

Best answer: If it's riffing on 77 Sunset Strip, then I'm guessing the bit would have been around the time Lloyd Bridges was most famous for starring in Sea Hunt, a maritime adventure show where he played a scuba diver.
posted by northernish at 6:31 PM on October 5, 2019 [9 favorites]

Sea Hunt on TV circa 1958 to 1961 (it would have ended when I was about 8, but reruns continued thereafter).

Just adding the link as follow-up to northernish.
posted by forthright at 6:32 PM on October 5, 2019 [3 favorites]

Response by poster: Has anyone been able to make out what is said in the unintelligible part? It almost sounds like "Well, some shark can always sell it to Lloyd Bridges" maybe as word play on shark (meaning an aggressive, unscrupulous person) and the marine creature further tying in to Sea Hunt?
posted by Larry David Syndrome at 9:16 PM on October 5, 2019

Yes, the Lloyd Bridges reference is to Sea Hunt, and [unintelligible] does sound like "some shark" to me.

Obvs the 77 Sunset Strip clue is in the name, but the jazzy v/o sent me direct to Peter Gunn. Convergent evolution, I guess.
posted by mumkin at 10:41 PM on October 5, 2019 [1 favorite]

Yeah, the recording is all about 50s-60s TV. I enjoyed it. In those days I didn't know about Spike Jones somehow. Thanks.
posted by JimN2TAW at 6:59 AM on October 6, 2019

Welp, this weekend I visited Chelsea, Michigan which is home to Lloyd Bridges Traveland. It sells used RVs and, per this company history, seems to be the last outpost of what was once a much larger enterprise that sold new and used trucks, etc. Related? I have no idea.
posted by carmicha at 8:54 AM on October 6, 2019