Memories Are Made of This

The comedy team of Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis dominated the early 1950’s where they churned out film after film, all of which were successful. Lewis once explained the appeal of the duo, saying that he appealed to “Women, Jews and Kids” and Martin appealed to “Men, Women and Italians”.

Watching some of those movies today (and I never saw any of them as a kid), Lewis might be right as since I am neither female, a child or Jewish, and in that comedy team it was Jerry Lewis who holds no appeal to me whatsoever.   Frankly with the exception of his role in “The King of Comedy”, his entire career success is a complete a mystery to me, as that high pitched voice and half wit persona just made him seem eighteen shades of annoying.

Seriously, if the characters that Jerry Lewis played were real, would you hang out with any of those guys?

Neither would I.  

Dean Martin, however, is a completely different story as he might be the icon of something I call the “Vin Scully Analogy” that I came up with a few years ago; and yes I have another tangent coming up.

Scully, the long time announcer for the Los Angeles Dodgers is in his late 80’s and is still the best Baseball broadcaster in the business, a title many of us state that he has held for fifty years. Now most people under the age of 40 don’t want to hang out with an 87 year old, let alone listen to one, but Dodgers fans and baseball fans in general of all ages will mourn the day when he stops broadcasting.

Why? Because he is one of the best at what he does and there is an unspoken cool factor that he has; basically he is one of those guys that is identifiable to any age group because the respect factor that he holds transcends cool. When he is eventually replaced by someone who is likely to be well under half his age, fans of all ages will have a hard time adjusting, and no, not because they lost a father or grandfather figure, but because they will no longer be listening to someone who was one of the few cases where the word “timeless” was used appropriately and every generation knew they were listening to a legend.

Scully is a legend despite the age of the viewer and he is just as relevant now as he was fifty years ago. That doesn’t happen often, but sometimes there are pop culture cases where one’s advancing age can increase a “hip” factor, and it is not in reference to breaking one.

In her early nineties, Betty White is more successful than she has ever been and enjoying a cool factor she has never had before. This wasn’t Milton Berle who in his later years with each passing television appearance appeared more out of touch with the current comedic landscape.[1] White was someone who became the oldest host of Saturday Night Live, a show on the cusp of comedy that has a youthful and was propelled into the spot because of an on line campaign conducted by a much younger demographic.

It isn’t an accident that Tony Bennett does duets with young contemporary artists, and it is him who makes others look cooler. There has never been any other artist that I can think of who could sing with people more than fifty years younger without it seeming like a gimmick or pandering; or at least nobody who has done it to this level of success.[2]

I have an even better example of an older man in the last ten years becoming the personification of cool: Jonathan Goldsmith.

Who? 99.9 percent of you probably have no idea based on the name, but you will now when I tell you that this is the man who plays “The Most Interesting Man in the World” in those Dos Equis beer commercials.[3] Goldsmith, who got the role when he was 69, is arguably cooler than “99.9” percent of the other people on television. The commercials took off, the beer sold more units, and I admit that I was one of those guys who bought more of that brand of cerveza because of it.[4]

I bring this up because the Dos Equis guy reminds me a bit of Dean Martin. Entertainment writers in the early 50’s predicted nothing but gloom after the breakup with Lewis, but both would thrive and in their own distinct way. Dean always had that quiet cool, a debonair style that even though in the mid-50’s he was in his late 30’s and seemed considerably older, still had that suave nature that made him someone that regardless of age you wanted to hang out with.

Watch anything that Martin did in the 50’s and 60’s and tell me that isn’t a man that you wouldn’t what walk into a high end establish with, wearing a tuxedo, drinking high end alcohol and flirting with high end women? That was the subtle power that Martin had, as in the decade of the 1950’s, he went from one half of a successful comedy team, to a member of Frank Sinatra’s Rat Pack.[5] In his career, Dean Martin would be a music star, a television star, movie star and stage star; all the while cementing his status in the 50’s, at least in my mind, as the “real” most interesting man of the world.

Musically speaking, early 1956 would see Martin have his biggest hit with “Memories Are Made of This”, though personally when I think of Dean “Volare” and “That’s Amore” are his real staples, though this song, especially for this era had the “white bread” appeal to take it to the number one slot, which would be the only time that he appeared here. Still, this is an enjoyable song, and worthy of Martin’s musical canon.

Although the musical spectrum was changing and Martin’s style of music was not going to survive the charts in the future, he would be a movie and television star for years to come and delight fans for generations to come, though lucky for him, his style of crooning came with additional skillsets to the point where he would have legions of fans that never paid attention to his singing.

Saying all of that, Dean Martin’s music in the 1950’s, while not exactly relevant to the Rock pantheon that was brewing, remains important because of that “Vin Scully” factor. Remember that the next time you time you watch the Dodgers and go pour yourself a glass of twenty year old scotch!

Other Notable Songs that charted but did not go to number one in this time period: January 14, 1955 – February 17, 1956

1/14/56: When You Dance by the Turbans peaked at #33, though went to #3 on the R&B chart.
2/4/56: Tutti Frutti by Little Richard peaked at #17 and went to #2 on the R&B chart.[6]
2/11/56: See You Later, Alligator by Bill Haley and the Comets peaked at #6 and went to #7 on the R&B chart.

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[1] A Google search of Milton Berle and Saturday Night Live, in reference to his horrific appearance hosting the show in 1979 can illustrate that, same with an appearance five years earlier on the Mike Douglas show with Richard Pryor. In both cases, younger viewers were scratching their head trying to figure how that old man was ever considered a comedic legend as he came across as a narcissist and crusty old bastard.
[2] Side note: My personal favorite multi-generational duet was Bing Crosby and David Bowie singing “The Little Drummer Boy”, a powerful statement considering how much I generally don’t care for Christmas Music.
[3] This is one of those times that I think the use of 99.9 percent is accurate. I don’t know about you but far too often when people are 99.9 percent sure, the actual percentage of them being right is far less than 99.9.
[4] I do have to admit to being disappointed that his name wasn’t Hispanic. Wouldn’t that have made him more “interesting”?
[5] Let’s do the “who would you rather have a drink with test” from the Rat Pack. I bet that Martin could even edge out Sinatra and Sammy Davis Jr. in that. If you are one of the ones who would have picked Peter Lawford or Joey Bishop, please stop reading and move off of this site.
[6] That’s no misprint. Not only did Little Richard not hit number one with his most enduring and recognizable hit, he didn’t crack the top ten with it. This will become even more bizarre in a later chapter.