How do you get from Mickey Dolenz to Brett Anderson with only two degrees of separation?
Metal Mickey first appeared on The Saturday Banana, a 1978 kids TV show I don't remember... probably because I was watching Swap Shop at the time. By 1980 he had graduated into his own sitcom, which also featured Irene Handl, Gary Shail from Quadrophenia and Margaret Omolola Young, the future Baroness Young of Hornsey as Janey. The show was produced, and at times directed, by one Mickey Dolenz...
As research, I watched bits of the Metal Mickey pilot episode on youtube. I didn't enjoy it as much as I did when I was 8, but Mickey seems more sarkily benign that the artificial intelligence of today.
Between 1979 and 1983, Metal Mickey released 6 singles. None of them appear to have troubled the singles chart. Here's one, which will cost you £20 for an original copy on discogs...
The Firm had a couple of novelty hits in the 80s based on the popular TV shows, Minder (Arthur Daley E's Alright) and Star Trek (Star Trekkin'... which went to Number One, which I can only apologise for, as I did buy a copy myself). Here's something else they did...
All me mates are on a diet
And I think I'd like to try it
But they take the Metal Mickey out of me
I tried to lose weight from me hips
By cutting down on silicon chips
And just the one expansion module in me tea
In 1996, Mr Dexter, Shylock & Mr Spyce were The Brotherhood. Look what happened when they got a rhyming dictionary for Christmas...
Who be motormouth Metal Mickey
Audible barrage like Pat nagging Ricky
It's sticky
The Brotherhood - Alphabetical Response
All right. You all know why we're here.
I always assumed that the title of Suede's first Top 20 hit was some kind of 90s drug culture reference. A rave culture equivalent of a Mickey Finn, perhaps, the knockout drug of choice in all the old detective films I loved. Turns out it's actually a reference to the TV show... but why, I've no idea, since the lyrics have nothing to do with a smart-mouthed boogieing robot, and were apparently written as an ode to KatieJane Garside, the lead singer of Daisy Chainsaw.
She sells hearts
She sells meat
Oh, dad, she's driving me mad
Come see, ay-ay
I've no idea if KatieJane worked in Brett Anderson's local butcher's shop on a weekend (the video suggests she might have done) but I always thought "Oh, dad, she's driving me mad" was a great chorus line.
Boogie Boogie.
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