I do not remember this album, but I do remember our family always talking about the Kennedys. Their love of athleticism- their love of fashion- the beauty of that family. Our family loved the Kennedy's - we lived in a little town in Ohio that voted for the republicans- so we were the only family whose parents voted democrat in our school. Black people were not allowed in our schools- and black children were not allowed in the only public swimming pool- and the kids would look through the bars while we were dancing the twist in our bathing suits, drinking pop and popcorn, and eating cotton candy. It was a surreal time.Then JFK was killed- everyone at school went out to the playground- we were crying. We were told that the Russians would be flying to the US to bomb us. We were watching the sky- waiting for the planes. Shortly after that we moved to Germany- and we missed the entire civil rights movement with the ensuing deaths of the black leadership and RFK and others. I remember that the G.I. s at the Army base in Weisbaden and the older boys at school would get out brass knuckles and their belts and beat up the German boys downtown. The US currency was 4-1 so for the american's life was cheap and most ate better than they ever had at home. Many of the homes in our town had never been rebuilt- a number of the families were so poor - and lived without running water or heat. We had 12' snowdrifts at times in the Taunus mountains. The people were brutalized. The americans called them krauts. That's because many of them couldn't afford much more than cabbage. imagine. It was a brutal occupation. People have no idea what it was like back then. And what we are heading for again.
Perhaps you're talking about US occupation right after the war, because I can't imagine GI's in the 60's beating up Germans or calling them Krauts. By then the post war animosity had mostly vanished. I was in Munich and travelled through Germany in 1966 without a problem. I would agree the U.S. is a virtual occupying force around the globe with mal intentions disguised as "freedom and democracy" everywhere. The G.I.'s themselves are just "following orders". Where have we heard that before?
we moved to germany right after kennedy was killed- imagine it- i was there- it happened every weekend- it was common for americans to call the germans krauts
That's new information to me. Where was that and which army base? I traveled with girl who was going to join her BF near Augsburg Sheridan Kaserne. We parted ways near there and I stayed at U. of Munich for a couple three days. Some students once were seen joking with Nazi salutes and Heil Hitlers. I didn't think it was too funny, but you think "college boys" and forget it. In grammar school (1949-55) we heard, and said, Hotsy Totsy, Newborn Nazi, Kraut, Jap and worse names were also commonly heard. I don't recall being around American GI's anywhere but once I stayed on a military base in Italy overnight. I heard some gunfire as I recall, and someone said it was a rebellion nearby. Probably this one Camp Darby
Location: Between the cities of Livorno and Pisa, Italy. I was in the Army Reserves so may have used that ID card. I was generally treated very well travelling, often hitchhiking, through France, Germany, Italy, Switzerland, Austria and Spain in 1966. I knew a German engineer who came to the US, probably operation Paperclip, who spent enough time in a French POW camp to drop below 100 # in weight. He said they never covered that story. He actually flew an ME 163.
How is it you moved to Germany? I was friends with a teenaged boy whose parents moved him from L.A. to Germany about 1961. He hated it and asked me to write him to keep in touch and I did. He said he learned German by going to movies. Bob Ozaine was his name and I saw him one more time I'd say mid 1960 when he came back to the U.S. He'd gone from slim and muscular to quite a bit heavier, but he was still an enthusiastic nice guy. Oh, one more thing about Bob. Circa 1960, he climbed over a chain link fence and hooked his ring finger on the top and tore his finger right off at the knuckle. I visited him in the hospital same or next day.
Remember, Bush Sr brought Nazis over to the US, the CIA military complex made the German populace suffer, whilst the criminal Nazis received a name change and living large in the US.
The Nazis were brought over long before Bush Senior during the Truman administration 1945 Operation paperclip. Werner von Braun father of the US space program was alleged to be a Nazi, many of them escaped Nuremberg because they were needed by the Soviets and the Americans to advance their own weapons of mass destruction programs.
I'm 65, born and raised in California and I only vaguely remember hearing about this album. I think what is more significant than how the assassination destroyed Vaughn Meader's short career as a comedian, is how a scene in the movie "Dr. Strangelove" was changed after JFK was killed. Slim Pickens was originally supposed to say "a fellow could have a pretty good weekend in Dallas with this stuff" but the city was changed to Vegas. Other parts of the movie were also changed:
I cannot begin to recall how many times I've seen the Vaughn Meader comedy LP in thrift stores and Goodwills everywhere. As an avid LP collector--I even own two copies...but never listen to them due to the dark clouds over the two brothers assassinations. I do agree that we should go back to that era and explore what was truly great--to include family traditions and incredible News stands!
The murder of JFK is the most traumatic US event in my lifetime. A domino series of events follow that change the course of this country. Vietnam, the murders of MLK, Malcolm X and RFK. The horror.
This is from a similar time frame...beatnik dopers must have had a ton o' fun with it, much like my cohort did a few years later with the Firesign Theater canon.
I was one month old in November of 1963. I still have my mother’s Kennedy campaign pins in storage. My mother was holding me in her arms when she found out Kennedy was assassinated.
Wonder if Trump was emulating this recording when he ordered fast food for the athletic team that visited the White House. Foley artists are the unsung heroes of audio entertainment. Thank you for sharing this uplifting gift! Many Blessings to all.
What happened to us you ask. We allowed the CIA to cultivate Vietnam War, LSD, hippies and Woodstock then labeled Johnnie and put him on Ritalin, Mom on that little blue pill.
Parenthetically, it's funny how over the past couple of months I'm seeing and hearing more and more references to Vaugn Meader. It started about six weeks ago when I returned from a trip, to the West Coast, got into a cab at the airport and told the driver who had forgotten, "be sure to put on your meter". Whereupon the driver launched into a reminiscence on Vaugn Meader. I didn't remember Meader's name, but knew the famous First Family album as my parents had it in the house. I discovered it years later in my teens (along with a Bob Newhart comedy album I didn't know existed). Parts of it I remember were really very funny, as Celia quoted. After that cab ride I started searching Meader and from the old clips I found, he was genuinely funny and really quite clever. Even found an old To Tell the Truth that featured Naomi Brossart (his "Jackie Kennedy") where Meader himself made a delightful celebrity cameo. Here's a charming 3-minute clip of Meader delighting a college crowd, answering questions as President Kennedy: https://youtu.be/35aO9GdOAZ0 (There are entertaining compilations of Kennedy's humor too.)
I do not remember this album, but I do remember our family always talking about the Kennedys. Their love of athleticism- their love of fashion- the beauty of that family. Our family loved the Kennedy's - we lived in a little town in Ohio that voted for the republicans- so we were the only family whose parents voted democrat in our school. Black people were not allowed in our schools- and black children were not allowed in the only public swimming pool- and the kids would look through the bars while we were dancing the twist in our bathing suits, drinking pop and popcorn, and eating cotton candy. It was a surreal time.Then JFK was killed- everyone at school went out to the playground- we were crying. We were told that the Russians would be flying to the US to bomb us. We were watching the sky- waiting for the planes. Shortly after that we moved to Germany- and we missed the entire civil rights movement with the ensuing deaths of the black leadership and RFK and others. I remember that the G.I. s at the Army base in Weisbaden and the older boys at school would get out brass knuckles and their belts and beat up the German boys downtown. The US currency was 4-1 so for the american's life was cheap and most ate better than they ever had at home. Many of the homes in our town had never been rebuilt- a number of the families were so poor - and lived without running water or heat. We had 12' snowdrifts at times in the Taunus mountains. The people were brutalized. The americans called them krauts. That's because many of them couldn't afford much more than cabbage. imagine. It was a brutal occupation. People have no idea what it was like back then. And what we are heading for again.
Perhaps you're talking about US occupation right after the war, because I can't imagine GI's in the 60's beating up Germans or calling them Krauts. By then the post war animosity had mostly vanished. I was in Munich and travelled through Germany in 1966 without a problem. I would agree the U.S. is a virtual occupying force around the globe with mal intentions disguised as "freedom and democracy" everywhere. The G.I.'s themselves are just "following orders". Where have we heard that before?
we moved to germany right after kennedy was killed- imagine it- i was there- it happened every weekend- it was common for americans to call the germans krauts
That's new information to me. Where was that and which army base? I traveled with girl who was going to join her BF near Augsburg Sheridan Kaserne. We parted ways near there and I stayed at U. of Munich for a couple three days. Some students once were seen joking with Nazi salutes and Heil Hitlers. I didn't think it was too funny, but you think "college boys" and forget it. In grammar school (1949-55) we heard, and said, Hotsy Totsy, Newborn Nazi, Kraut, Jap and worse names were also commonly heard. I don't recall being around American GI's anywhere but once I stayed on a military base in Italy overnight. I heard some gunfire as I recall, and someone said it was a rebellion nearby. Probably this one Camp Darby
Location: Between the cities of Livorno and Pisa, Italy. I was in the Army Reserves so may have used that ID card. I was generally treated very well travelling, often hitchhiking, through France, Germany, Italy, Switzerland, Austria and Spain in 1966. I knew a German engineer who came to the US, probably operation Paperclip, who spent enough time in a French POW camp to drop below 100 # in weight. He said they never covered that story. He actually flew an ME 163.
https://www.militaryfactory.com/aircraft/detail.php?aircraft_id=107
I just didn't know the animosity lingered into the 1960's.
How is it you moved to Germany? I was friends with a teenaged boy whose parents moved him from L.A. to Germany about 1961. He hated it and asked me to write him to keep in touch and I did. He said he learned German by going to movies. Bob Ozaine was his name and I saw him one more time I'd say mid 1960 when he came back to the U.S. He'd gone from slim and muscular to quite a bit heavier, but he was still an enthusiastic nice guy. Oh, one more thing about Bob. Circa 1960, he climbed over a chain link fence and hooked his ring finger on the top and tore his finger right off at the knuckle. I visited him in the hospital same or next day.
Less than 15 yrs after WW2, I believe you. That’s what the GI’s called the Germans during that time.
Remember, Bush Sr brought Nazis over to the US, the CIA military complex made the German populace suffer, whilst the criminal Nazis received a name change and living large in the US.
The Nazis were brought over long before Bush Senior during the Truman administration 1945 Operation paperclip. Werner von Braun father of the US space program was alleged to be a Nazi, many of them escaped Nuremberg because they were needed by the Soviets and the Americans to advance their own weapons of mass destruction programs.
I'm 65, born and raised in California and I only vaguely remember hearing about this album. I think what is more significant than how the assassination destroyed Vaughn Meader's short career as a comedian, is how a scene in the movie "Dr. Strangelove" was changed after JFK was killed. Slim Pickens was originally supposed to say "a fellow could have a pretty good weekend in Dallas with this stuff" but the city was changed to Vegas. Other parts of the movie were also changed:
https://www.bestmoviesbyfarr.com/articles/how-jfks-assassination-changed-the-fate-of/2014/07
I cannot begin to recall how many times I've seen the Vaughn Meader comedy LP in thrift stores and Goodwills everywhere. As an avid LP collector--I even own two copies...but never listen to them due to the dark clouds over the two brothers assassinations. I do agree that we should go back to that era and explore what was truly great--to include family traditions and incredible News stands!
The murder of JFK is the most traumatic US event in my lifetime. A domino series of events follow that change the course of this country. Vietnam, the murders of MLK, Malcolm X and RFK. The horror.
Reflection of another time, different sensitivities, and rotary phones 🙂
This is from a similar time frame...beatnik dopers must have had a ton o' fun with it, much like my cohort did a few years later with the Firesign Theater canon.
NYC track https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hTXpg093V_E
complete album https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jjgxmlw43pw
Firesign Theater??!! They were the best!
I was one month old in November of 1963. I still have my mother’s Kennedy campaign pins in storage. My mother was holding me in her arms when she found out Kennedy was assassinated.
Wow, she would NEVER forget that. I have an indelible image in my mind of when I found out, at age 10, four days before my 11th birthday.
Wonder if Trump was emulating this recording when he ordered fast food for the athletic team that visited the White House. Foley artists are the unsung heroes of audio entertainment. Thank you for sharing this uplifting gift! Many Blessings to all.
Why am I so disgusted by comparisons between 45 and JFK? So totally disgusted by 45, never disgusted by JFK....
What happened to us you ask. We allowed the CIA to cultivate Vietnam War, LSD, hippies and Woodstock then labeled Johnnie and put him on Ritalin, Mom on that little blue pill.
We lost our innocence and closed our eyes.
I was 16 and in High School junior English class at Loyola High School in Los Angeles when JFK was killed by Allen Dulles
of the CIA. Many of us have known this for a long time. I have the Vaughn Meader album and I have played it since JFK
was assassinated by the CIA on orders from Allen Dulles- who placed himself on the Warren Commission to prevent any
fact based inquiry. Mark Lane and Mort Sahl led the early inquiry and exposed the CIA control. So Did DA Jim Garrison from
New Orleans. Oliver Stone knows all this as well as I do. The Tucker Carlson breathless recent revelations are not new to
Boomers who paid attention to this in the 60s.
"JFK to 9/11 - Everything is a Rich Man's Trick" Tells much more about the Dulles' and the assassinations.
The documentary, well worth a view, it is on youtube,
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Wf3O93I4lI&ab_channel=LunarMonkey
https://letterboxd.com/film/jfk-to-9-11-everything-is-a-rich-mans-trick/
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt4798606/
Comedians on record managed to hit vulnerable targets much harder than any "comedian" does now. Stan Freberg made fun of woke censorship in 1957.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zi2n4xX9Jbc&ab_channel=StanFreberg-Topic
Tom Lehrer mocked academia, which hasn't changed in 1000 years.
Why did the audience laugh hysterically at the questions from a woman about equal pay and the monument to the educator???
Parenthetically, it's funny how over the past couple of months I'm seeing and hearing more and more references to Vaugn Meader. It started about six weeks ago when I returned from a trip, to the West Coast, got into a cab at the airport and told the driver who had forgotten, "be sure to put on your meter". Whereupon the driver launched into a reminiscence on Vaugn Meader. I didn't remember Meader's name, but knew the famous First Family album as my parents had it in the house. I discovered it years later in my teens (along with a Bob Newhart comedy album I didn't know existed). Parts of it I remember were really very funny, as Celia quoted. After that cab ride I started searching Meader and from the old clips I found, he was genuinely funny and really quite clever. Even found an old To Tell the Truth that featured Naomi Brossart (his "Jackie Kennedy") where Meader himself made a delightful celebrity cameo. Here's a charming 3-minute clip of Meader delighting a college crowd, answering questions as President Kennedy: https://youtu.be/35aO9GdOAZ0 (There are entertaining compilations of Kennedy's humor too.)
A sense of grace, or courteous goodwill, is what comes to mind when watching these clips.
Oh my gosh.....I remember listening to this at my aunt and uncle's home as a child...hadn't thought of it in years! It was a different time and place
Finally took time to listen, and it is excellent.
Do you know if a transcript is available?