"Disco Duck" is a
satirical disco novelty song
A novelty song is a type of song built upon some form of novel concept, such as a gimmick, a piece of humor, or a sample of popular culture. Novelty songs partially overlap with comedy songs, which are more explicitly based on humor, and wit ...
performed by
Rick Dees
Rigdon Osmond Dees III (born March 14, 1950), best known as Rick Dees, is an American entertainer, radio personality, comedian, actor, and voice artist, best known for his internationally syndicated radio show '' The Rick Dees Weekly Top 40 Coun ...
and His Cast of Idiots. At the time, Dees was a
Memphis
Memphis most commonly refers to:
* Memphis, Egypt, a former capital of ancient Egypt
* Memphis, Tennessee, a major American city
Memphis may also refer to:
Places United States
* Memphis, Alabama
* Memphis, Florida
* Memphis, Indiana
* Memp ...
disc jockey. It became a number-one hit on the
''Billboard'' Hot 100 for one week in October 1976 (and ranked #97 out of the 100 most popular songs of the year according to ''
Billboard'' magazine). It also made the top 20 on the ''Billboard''
Hot Soul Singles
The Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart ranks the most popular R&B and hip hop songs in the United States and is published weekly by ''Billboard''. Rankings are based on a measure of radio airplay, sales data, and streaming activity. The chart had 100 p ...
chart, peaking at number 15. "Disco Duck" was initially released in the south by
Estelle Axton
Estelle Axton (September 11, 1918 – February 24, 2004) was an American record executive and co-founder of Stax Records, along with her brother Jim Stewart.
Biography
Born in Middleton, Tennessee, Estelle Stewart grew up on a farm. She move ...
's Fretone label, but it was later released by
RSO Records
RSO Records was a record label formed by rock and roll and musical theatre impresario Robert Stigwood and record executive Al Coury in 1973. The letters "RSO" stood for the Robert Stigwood Organisation.
RSO managed the careers of several ma ...
for national and international distribution. The song earned a 1977 People's Choice Award for Favorite New Song.
Origin and storyline
Written by Dees, "Disco Duck" was inspired by a 1960s novelty dance song called "
The Duck", recorded by Jackie Lee (
Earl Lee Nelson) in 1965. According to Dees, it took one day to write the song, but three months to convince anyone to perform it.
Combining
orchestral
An orchestra (; ) is a large instrumental ensemble typical of classical music, which combines instruments from different families.
There are typically four main sections of instruments:
* bowed string instruments, such as the violin, viola, ...
disco styles with a
Donald Duck-esque voice as the main plot point, the story within "Disco Duck" centers on a man at a dance party who is overcome by the urge to get up and "get down" in a duck-like manner. When the music stops, he sits down, but when he decides to get up and dance again, he finds that everyone in the room is now doing his dance.
Duck voice
A misconception about "Disco Duck" is that the voice of the duck was provided by
Clarence Nash
Clarence Charles "Ducky" Nash (December 7, 1904 – February 20, 1985) was an American voice actor. He was best known as the original voice of the Disney cartoon character Donald Duck. He was born in the rural community of Watonga, Oklahoma, and ...
, the original voice of Donald Duck in many
Walt Disney
Walter Elias Disney (; December 5, 1901December 15, 1966) was an American animator, film producer and entrepreneur. A pioneer of the American animation industry, he introduced several developments in the production of cartoons. As a film p ...
cartoons, but on several occasions the
Disney Company maintained that Nash never contributed to the record. The voice of the duck was performed by Ken Pruitt, an acquaintance of Dees, as stated on the label of the RSO release. For the live tour, the duck vocals were handled by Michael Chesney, another acquaintance of Dees.
In fact, the voice emulates that of
Yakky Doodle
Yakky Doodle is a cartoon duck created by Hanna-Barbera Productions for the 1961 series ''The Yogi Bear Show''. Yakky's name is a spoof of "Yankee Doodle".
History
Yakky Doodle (voiced by Jimmy Weldon using the same buccal speech technique used ...
, a
Hanna-Barbera animated duck who appeared on TV in 1960 and 1961 and was still seen regularly on afternoon TV cartoon shows in the late 1970s. He even parodies Yakky's signature phrase, "Are you my mama?", saying "I've got to have me a mama!"
Response and impact
"Disco Duck" became a nationwide hit in the United States by September 1976. On the ''Billboard'' Hot 100 singles chart, it peaked at number one on October 16, 1976, for one week, held the number-two spot for the following four weeks and remained in the Top 10 for a total of 10 weeks. The single sold over 4 million copies and won a
People's Choice Award
The People's Choice Awards is an American awards show, recognizing people in entertainment, voted online by the general public and fans. The show has been held annually since 1975, with the winners originally determined using Gallup Polls until ...
.
For all its success, "Disco Duck" got very little airplay in Memphis, including at
WMPS
WMPS (1210 AM) – branded as Sunny 103.1 – is a commercial adult standards radio station licensed to Bartlett, Tennessee. Owned by Flinn Broadcasting, the station serves the Memphis metropolitan area. In addition to a standard analog trans ...
, the station Dees worked for at the time; Dees was forbidden by station management to play the record on his own show, and rival stations refused to play it for fear of promoting the competition. When Dees merely mentioned the song on his show one morning, WMPS management fired him citing
conflict of interest. After a brief mandatory hiatus, Dees was hired on at WMPS' primary competition,
WHBQ, who gave him permission to play his song.
By the time "Disco Duck" had become a hit, Dees and his "Idiots" started making the rounds of the popular TV music shows to promote the record. On ''
American Bandstand'' (and similar shows), Dees lip-synched to the recording, alone on stage with puppeteer Rickey Provow animating a duck puppet that he had made. This appearance was never seen in the Memphis area due to then-ABC affiliate
WHBQ-TV
WHBQ-TV (channel 13) is a television station in Memphis, Tennessee, United States, affiliated with the Fox network and owned by Imagicomm Communications. The station's studios are located on South Highland Street (near the campus of the Univers ...
pre-empting ''Bandstand'' for wrestling at the time and for the aforementioned Memphis radio avoidance reasons. But when Dees appeared on ''
The Midnight Special'' and went on a live tour along the East Coast, he hired a band, backing singers and a commercial artist, Michael Chesney, to perform the duck vocals, and they did everything live.
"Disco Duck" made an appearance in the film ''
Saturday Night Fever'', in a dance club scene in which a group of senior citizens were learning to dance disco-style. It was also featured in a deleted scene added to the PG-rated version. As it stands, Dees could have made an even more substantial amount of money from the song. According to Dees, his manager at the time made the extremely unwise decision to deny use of the song on the film's soundtrack album because of fears that it would compete with sales of Dees's own record.
[Boucher, Geoff]
"A New Dees Dawn"
''The Los Angeles Times'', September 23, 2006. The
''Saturday Night Fever'' soundtrack has now currently sold 40 million copies worldwide, and is the second best-selling soundtrack of all time.
Irwin the Disco Duck, also called Irwin the Dynamic Duck, a fictional character who was featured on a series of children's
records
A record, recording or records may refer to:
An item or collection of data Computing
* Record (computer science), a data structure
** Record, or row (database), a set of fields in a database related to one entity
** Boot sector or boot record, r ...
from
Peter Pan Records
Peter Pan Records is an American record label specializing in children's music. The label was introduced to the public in March 1948. The label was owned by the Synthetic Plastics Company of Newark, New Jersey until the 1970s.
The label became ...
, was inspired by this record.
Chart performance
Weekly charts
Year-end charts
All-time charts
Certifications
References
External links
*
{{authority control
1976 singles
1976 songs
Rick Dees songs
Billboard Hot 100 number-one singles
Cashbox number-one singles
RPM Top Singles number-one singles
Disco songs
Novelty songs
RSO Records singles
Songs about disco
Fictional ducks
Songs about dancing