Luke Haines writes the shuk out of rock'n'roll

Luke Haines writes the shuk out of rock'n'roll The piquant power of forgotten fruit

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It is late 1968; I am one year old. There is a hit TV show on. Ostensibly for kids, though it might be for the Heads. Of course, I have no memory of this TV show in real time, but it will go on to haunt me via its reruns all the way up to 1982. Ladies and gents of the RC readership, I present to you the exorcism of The Banana Splits show.

As we in Record Collector world know, by 1968, pop music had shape-shifted into unrecognisable forms. Herman's Hermits and Freddie & The Dreamers et al had been wiped out by music-concrete-Trojan-horsed-into-the Universal-Mind by The Beatles via Revolution 9. Meanwhile, The Beach Boys were being courted by Charlie Manson, and The Monkees – the world's first manufactured TV boy band who weren't even a real band (quelle horreur!) — had now made an avant-garde film, Head, deconstructing themselves and the entire culture that had created them (effectively self-immolating their own careers). Woah, meta!

The ground had been sanctified by The Weird. Pre-Altamont, Hippies and Yippies deep in the soixant-huitard anxiety of assassinations, Chicago riots, Black Panthers, and The Weather Underground. Amerikkka could only stare aghast at the monster of its own creation: The Banana Splits show. Four men in life-sized animal costumes. The evil proto-Wombles on amphetamine with no intention of clearing up Wimbledon Common.