Biff Tunes: Monkee Parts — Cruisin’ with Lucy and Ramona

Way back in 1979, when music videos were a relatively new thing, and a lot of people had not heard of MTV yet, Michael Nesmith (of Monkee’s fame) released an album called “Infinite Rider on the Big Dogma“.  It was his ninth post-Monkees album and the third produced by his own multimedia company, Pacific Arts.

Michael was one of the early pioneers of pairing music and video together and went on to win the first ever Grammy for the Music Video category with his video entitled “Elephant Parts“, which was a 1-hour collection of comedy skits, music videos, and parodies.

One of the songs from the “Dogma” album, which went on to become a music video on “Elephant Parts” was the song “Cruisin’ “, or as it is more popularly known, “Lucy and Ramona and Sunset Sam“.

“Crusin’ ” was one of the biggest ear worms ever released onto an unsuspecting public.  Though I had not heard it since about 1984, some parts of it will still pop into my head over 30 years later.

I have heard it said that the best way to get rid of an ear worm is to give it to someone else … so … here you go.

 

 

The part of Sunset Sam was played by L.A. local wrestler Steve Strong.  It was mistakenly thought and reported for many years that the part was played by a young Hulk Hogan, but that was later cleared up.  However, it is still possible to find references to Hulk Hogan as having been in this video.

As for who played Lucy and Ramona, the only reference I could find to this was for Tracy Rhoades who was credited as “Roller Skater (uncredited)”.  I have no idea if she was Lucy or Ramona.

Anyway, I hope you enjoyed this blast from the past, and this virtually incurable ear worm.

No need to thank me!