Bebop changed American music but wasn’t taken seriously for much of Charlie Parker’s life. This mid-century popcorn television commercial shows how the public’s perception of bebop was riddled with stereotypes.
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TRANSCRIPT
- Another aspect of the bebop thing that was so hurtful and so upsetting to musicians was that people treat it as a joke.
You know, these write ups in 'Time' magazine and 'Life' and so forth, all they concentrated on was Dizzy's beret and the horn rimmed glasses and the goatees and everything but the music itself.
There was no serious attention paid to Charlie Parker as a great creative musician in the general national press and the newspapers and the magazines and radio and television, any of the media, it was just horrifying, how really miserably he was treated.
And this goes for the way Dizzy Gillespie was treated, everybody.
- I dig it, you ain't hip, old man, but EZ Pop pop in its own pan.
- You mean EZ Pop popped in its own pan?
- Now you're swinging, daddy, you're crazy, man.
Why don't you make it with me to the grocery shop?
We'll both dig a pan of this EZ Pop.
♪ The bop boppaloo bop de doo be be ♪ ♪ The bop a loo ba ot ♪ (rhythmic snare drumming) EZ Pop, man, that's real popcorn!
(clapperboard clacks)