In T. Mike Childs’ world — which is our world, too, really — the Blender Children are the biggest heavy-metal band ever, and everybody knows the Gnats took over where the Beatles left off.
But technically, neither band exists: The Blender Children were big-hair misfits in the movie “Tapeheads,” and the Gnats were the unsuccessful rock-band formed by Gilligan, Skipper, the Professor and Mr. Howell.
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Charming or embarrassing, well-known or obscure, from the Blues Brothers to “Eyes Wide Shut” lounge singer Nick Nightingale, these musicians from movies and television shows appear in comedian Childs’ comprehensive Rocklopedia Fakebandica (www.vgg.com/tp/tp-080700-fakeband.html).
Childs built the site with 50 bands in August 2000 and lists more than 400 today, with hundreds more waiting to be listed.
“I’ve always been a sucker for novelty music,” says Childs, a member of the Van Gogh-Goghs, a Los Angeles comedy troupe. “In addition to being a complete geek, what made it worse was I was a big `Weird Al’ Yankovic fan.” With that pedigree in mind, here are Childs’ nominees for the Fake Band Hall of Fame:
– Spinal Tap, stars of the 1984 metal mockumentary “This Is Spinal Tap.” “For all the obvious reasons,” Childs says. “They came along and sort of put fake bands on the map.” Blithely neglecting the Tap classic “Big Bottom,” Childs names the ’60s-psychedelia parodies “Gimme Some Money” and “(Listen to the) Flower People” as his favorites.
– The Rutles, subjects of the 1978 television special “All You Need Is Cash,” a Beatles sendup starring Monty Python’s Eric Idle as the Paul McCartney-ish Dirk McQuickley. “[They were] the big No. 2 — well before Spinal Tap,” Childs recalls.
– Dr. Teeth and the Electric Mayhem, house band for “The Muppet Show.” “I loved Animal, the drummer, who was just insane,” Childs says. “I always thought he was a Keith Moon stand-in.” Animal’s basic needs represent those of every male drummer in rock history: “Louder!” “Food now!” “Woman woman woman!”
– The Nightmare, hard-rock battle-of-the-band winners on 1977’s Muppet special “Emmett Otter’s Jugband Christmas.” From the Rocklopedia: “The band featured a bear on keyboards, a rat on guitar, a snake on bass, a frog on drums and a spitting fish dancer. You can’t get much more ethnically diverse than that.”