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Song Parodies -> "Turtle"

Original Song Title:

"Ringo"

Original Performer:

Lorne Greene

Parody Song Title:

"Turtle"

Parody Written by:

Tommy Turtle

The Lyrics

Here's a hot tip: Write (and post) your obituary now, *before* you need it, instead of *after*! It's soooo much easier!

Lorne Greene does this magnificent cowboy classic (no, it has nothing to do with the Beatles), with an intro, here. IMHO, the parody isn't quite the same without it. :)

He lay face down in the beach dune sand
Green guy with flipper 'stead of hand
Didn't move his behind; I thought he was dead
For under his shell was a ton of lead
But he fin'lly crawled, and so gosh-darn slow
But that's as fast as he can go! He's Turtle!

Tur---tle,
Tur---tle

Had slow limbs, but his brain was fast
What I heard at first were jokes, half-assed
And then, from dawn till setting sun,
He practiced perspicacious pun
And "ow-er" on "ow-er" spewed from this twit
No human being could match the wit of Turtle

Tur---tle,
Tur---tle

One day, we quit the writing fest
And I went East, and he went West
I took to drama: rave reviews
While he dug deeply in the 00s.
Sarcasm sharp, he gained such fame
Whole World Wide Web, it feared the name of Turtle

Tur---tle,
Tur---tle

I knew some day that we'd contest
Which one of us, most wit, possessed?
And sure enough, came word that night
That he was logged in: AmIRight
I left submission, still incomplete
And I went in alone to meet Turtle

Tur---tle,
Tur---tle

They said my wit was next to none
But my parody had just begun
When I felt satire sting my wrist
The mouse went flying from my fist
And I was looking at the screen
Of the deadly joke machine of Turtle

Tur---tle,
Tur---tle

For once, re-fused to rip a rhyme
No clever pun? That's not his style
He slowly lowered his laptop, then
"Our rivalry", he said, "transcend"
And so at last I understood
That there was more than sheep-bound wood in Turtle

Tur---tle,
Tur---tle

I gratefully concede defeat
He turned and crawled into the street
A dozen Ones: invective, read
A moment later, he lay dead
The site popped cans of stout and beer
Nowhere was there shed a tear for Turtle

Tur---tle....

The story spread throughout the site
That I had beaten Turtle's write
And it's too many beers, they say
That made me quit my puns, wordplay
But on his grave, they can't explain
The 555 above the name
Of Turtle

Tom---my,
Tur---tle!

Tom---my,
Tur---tle!


© 2009 Tommy Turtle. All rights reserved. E-mail: tomm...@yahoo.com

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Voting Results

 
Pacing: 5.0
How Funny: 5.0
Overall Rating: 5.0

Total Votes: 11

Voting Breakdown

The following represent how many people voted for each category.

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 2   0
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 3   0
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 4   0
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 5   11
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User Comments

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metaphorsbwithu - August 27, 2009 - Report this comment
Five burnished gold stars three times to you, sir. What a great concept and extremely well done. Terrific adaptation of the original storyline. The final "555" cap is perfect! :-D
AFW - August 27, 2009 - Report this comment
You've really ripped this one, Turtle..Pa Cartwright would be proud...and this could make a great movie..let's see, now who could we get to star? Hmm..how about Maria Schell and John Turturro ?
Mark Scotti - August 27, 2009 - Report this comment
Pa, Adam, Little Joe, Hoss....AND TURTLE!! Branding you 555 on the Ponderosa!!
Fiddlegirl - August 27, 2009 - Report this comment
Punfight at the OK Coral... Quick-Draw McCrawl!
Gari J - August 27, 2009 - Report this comment
Tommy I'm starting to think your either over 60 and well versed by now in the art of parody - or you an obssessed and rather gifted pun-linguist. I was playing that song next to your parody and not a single pacing FAF (funny as (yoo work that 1 out) must have been weird al in his disguise that shot out punned you a well deserved 555
Tommy Turtle - August 27, 2009 - Report this comment
metaphorsbwithu : LOL @ "cap"! Thanks for the Bonanza of compliments!
BR> AFW: Great casting! Pitch it to the studios for me and you can get the 10% agent fee :) ... thanks A!

Mark Scotti: Thank goodness for having a shell -- that branding iron's gotta hurt! (Don't the cattle mind it? Always wondered.) Tonight, I will ponder oh su-ch a nice comment!

Fiddlegirl: ROFLMAO! (Double R... for "Coral" -- shell-splittingly funny! Reefer madness?) You've a "hare-trigger" for puns, yerself -- maybe you and the tortoise should form a gang? Imagine the posse-bilities!

Gari J: Thanks, but is it not possible to be under 60 and still be well-versed in parody? I started at about age ten.... and as far as either-or, the "or" is definitely true, if you'll pardon my breaching my customary humility (coughgagcough)... if you'll notice, Turtle was *not* out-punned (re-read the sixth verse, and replay the sixth verse on the video -- Ringo refuses to kill the man who previously saved his life, but the angry mob does him in anyway).

I'm assuming you're in your teens, probably early-middle. Keep working at it -- it doesn't come overnight, but it will come. And some advice you might not like so much -- learn as much as possible about all you can -- science, art, literature, history, etc. It gives you a wider range of references on which to build your stories, puns, and jokes. And read the authors whom you admire, observe what they are doing and how they're doing it, and absorb what part of that suits your own style and personality.

Finally (at last! -- GJ heaves a sigh of relief), continually enlarge your vocabulary. Words are your tools. The more of them you know, the more choices you have to find the right one for the job (line or joke) at hand. And enjoy! -- TT
Timmy1000 - August 27, 2009 - Report this comment
Funny take on this one; great story line. Sad to say I actually remember the OS.
TT - August 27, 2009 - Report this comment
Timmy1000: Wouldn't have done it if I didn't remember it, too... Lotta us Boomers on the site. Great music in those days, great movies, men were men, women were braless -- oops, that's from a comment at another song. Thanks for v/c, T1K!
Gari J - August 27, 2009 - Report this comment
TT the Pun-Linguist was more my word for a clever person able to pull words out of a hat and string them into a sentence. No need for a larger vocabulary I can do a Guardian crossword inside of 5 minutes, and no I'm not mid-teens I'm mid twenties (you got their first so have a giggle with that one and rip that one LOL). I do study, read and absorb as much info as I can gather, but the question still remains how old are you?
Gari J - August 27, 2009 - Report this comment
I guess the sixth verse re-iterates what I say, in some weird morbid fashion. A talented writer shot down by a mob of lesser writers, which sounds weird in its self but that’s the way it goes. Long live the turlte (and they do live quite long some of them) Galapagos Land tortoise a close relative of the Turtle.
FG @ TT - August 27, 2009 - Report this comment
I think you've got something there! So, when do I get depthutized?
FG @ TT (@ MS)... - August 27, 2009 - Report this comment
Meanwhile, back at the ranch... have a cold glass of hops, sing the theme song, etc. ;)
FG @ Gari J - August 27, 2009 - Report this comment
"Galapagos Land tortoise a close relative"

I'm sure TT is well aware of this. As soon as he sees a gal's lap, there he goes!
Christie Marie M - August 27, 2009 - Report this comment
Great take on an obituary based parody, Tommy! Maybe I should start writing one soon, even though it's not my time yet. This also serves as a self tribute as well! You will always be considered a professional parody artist, as well as an educated sea turtle who gives informative footnotes! :) :) Slow and steady gives you 5's!
TT - August 28, 2009 - Report this comment
Gari J: Thank you for the kind wishes. Pardon me, but the question is a bit, uh, "personal" ... but you can pretty much tell someone's general age bracket by looking at what decade provides the majority of their OSs, as our tastes are usually formed in childhood or early teens. "Boomer" is close enough.

Yes, I'm a cunning linguist (hehe). Admire your ability to do the X-word, but -- no offense -- the frequent grammatical errors gave me the impression that you were still a student. Allowing for differences between en-BR and en-US, I think "affect" and "effect" are similarly different (oxymoron!) on both sides of the pond, and is "itself" not one word in BR, as it is in US? Not to mention punctuation, but will definitely NOT mention typos, as I type terribly -- it's these @#$% flippers!.Thanks again for generous comments!

Re: Chelonian life span: My secretary gave a re-tort-us maximus on my behalf, bless her! :)

FG: First, I have to check out your lungs. Then, I have to see how long you can stay down, while holding your breath. (cf. "Deep Throat" -- the original, not the political.) Then we see how deep you can take it. Finally, if you give me a little posse, you become certified SCUBA -- Supremely Clever, Ultra-Brilliant Author -- and you become de-puta. (Don't look that up in Spanish.) xoxo

Christie Marie M: Thank you! ... none of us knows when our time is, so ... enjoy! ... and glad you like the footnotes. Not everyone does. :)
FG @ TT - August 28, 2009 - Report this comment
ROFL!!!! No more comments... I know when I've been licked ;)
Old Man Ribber - August 28, 2009 - Report this comment
A shel of a job! ;D
TT - August 28, 2009 - Report this comment
FG: No, you don't. You have no idea what a *real* licking is like until you've had one from TT -- in person (multiple interpretations.) ;)

Old Man Ribber: Thanks lol!
TJC - August 31, 2009 - Report this comment
Wow! Parodical genius transcendent ! I was 'spectin' a Horn Preen Porn Scene Lorne Greene routine, but this was so much better... and 5's once again for the 'punseen' category "Pot Stirrin'"!
TT - August 31, 2009 - Report this comment
Aw, shucks, didn't think it was *that* good -- but who am I to argue with so brilliant a mind as yours? :) Thanks, TJ!
Patrick - July 08, 2011 - Report this comment
A true gem. Unfortunately, in a certain sense, it appears to have been prophetic.
Tommy Turtle - July 09, 2011 - Report this comment
Patrick: How insightful. Never thought of this parody in that way, but you're right.

In its original meaning, let's pretend that I had some terminal illness. I'd rather leave a parody like this, or a few such, as my legacy, than hundreds of conveyor-belt riffs of a brief song with little rhyme and less structure. But that's just I. Thanks fo0 the kind words.

Perhaps when my time should come, ChuckyG will keep this on the home or author page as a memorial, much as the late, great malcolm higgins is memorialized to this day. I would feel very much honored.

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