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Song Parodies -> "Scenes from a Chinese Restaurant (The Ballad of Ralphie and Alice)"
Original Song Title:
"Scenes from an Italian Restaurant (The Ballad of Brenda & Eddie)"
(MP3)Original Performer:
Billy Joel
Parody Song Title:
"Scenes from a Chinese Restaurant (The Ballad of Ralphie and Alice)"
Parody Written by:
Michael Pacholek
The Lyrics
Oh, a wisenheimer, am I? If you don't watch "The Honeymooners," this won't make any sense. If you do, this is gonna be a regular riot. To make it easier to read, I left out all the whoa-whoas from BJ's original. As one of the Florio brothers recently proved, parodying "Scenes from an Italian Restaurant" is not, as Ralphie Boy would say, a mere bag of shells. I tried all kinds of combos. "Hillary and Bill..." No. "Rudy and Donna..." No. "Georgie and Condi..." Uh-uh. "Britney and Justin..." Forget it. "Rachel and Ross..." Rhythm's wrong. "Monica and Chandler..." What rhymes with Chandler? Not enough. "Phoebe and Joey..." But they don't see it yet. Some friends the six of them turned out to be! "Carmela and Tony..." I kept coming up with "phony," so I had to whack that one. But thinking not of couples' names but of "Italian restaurant," that did it. Chinese restaurant. Ralphie and Alice. (Either that, or Paul and Jamie from "Mad About You," but, again, wrong rhythm.)
Buckets of rice, moo goo gai pan, perhaps chow fun is what you've planned.
We're right here on Chauncey Street in our old familiar place.
Hey, Norton, duck sauce on your face.
Moo goo gai pan, buckets of rice, maybe egg foo young will suffice.
I'll meet you anytime you want in our Chinese restaurant.
Things are OK with me these days, I'm outta the sewer, City Hall office!
Trixie my wife, we got a good life and the pizza is fine!
And those laughs, long ago, you gained weight, and how'd we know
our show'd still be rerun after so much time!
Do you remember those nights hangin' out at the Raccoon Hall?
Admiral Dewey jackets, coonskin caps and costume balls?
Headin' out to Ebbets Field, and watchin' Dem Bums play ball!
Cold beer, hot lights, those honeymooning Brooklyn nights!
Ralphie saw Alice and soon he got jealous of the guy that took her to the prom.
But one look at him and his big silly grin and the other guy's gone.
Nobody looked any finer, or was more of a hit at the Bushwick Diner.
They never knew they could want more than that out of life.
Sure that Ralphie and Alice would always know how to survive.
Ralphie and Alice, they rented a palace in the summer of '41
He drove a bus and he made such a fuss when the money was gone.
Everyone said he was chubby, "Alice, you know, he's a big fat hubby
and he plays too much pool and goes bowling on too many nights."
But he always said, "Baby, you're the greatest" and ended the fight.
Well, that little apartment, no curtains or carpet, just an icebox for holding the beers.
And Ralph was a creep, always being so cheap, even after they're married for years.
They always would fight when dinner wasn't fixed right and her mother would always draw jeers.
Well, he'd just threaten soon to send her to the moon, but it's always the same in the end.
His big harebrained scheme would blow up his big dream, but Norton still stood by his friend.
He'd say, "I'm a moax," but soon he would coax Alice right back in his arms again.
Ralphie and Alice, despite all the malice, stayed together through '55.
And then we could see on CBS-TV all the laughs in their life.
The writing and acting were clever, and the reruns insure that they'll still be together
even today, after Jackie and Audrey have died.
Oh, and that's all I heard about Ralphie and Alice.
It sure beats the hell out of "South Park" or "Dallas."
And here we all are, watching Ralphie and Alice tonight!
Moo goo gai pan, buckets of rice, the Hong Kong Gardens sure is nice.
I'll meet you anytime you want in our Chinese restaurant.
We're right here on Chauncey Street in our old familiar place.
Hey, Norton, duck sauce on your face.
Moo goo gai pan, buckets of rice, maybe egg foo young will suffice.
I'll meet you anytime you want in our Chinese restaurant.
Things are OK with me these days, I'm outta the sewer, City Hall office!
Trixie my wife, we got a good life and the pizza is fine!
And those laughs, long ago, you gained weight, and how'd we know
our show'd still be rerun after so much time!
Do you remember those nights hangin' out at the Raccoon Hall?
Admiral Dewey jackets, coonskin caps and costume balls?
Headin' out to Ebbets Field, and watchin' Dem Bums play ball!
Cold beer, hot lights, those honeymooning Brooklyn nights!
Ralphie saw Alice and soon he got jealous of the guy that took her to the prom.
But one look at him and his big silly grin and the other guy's gone.
Nobody looked any finer, or was more of a hit at the Bushwick Diner.
They never knew they could want more than that out of life.
Sure that Ralphie and Alice would always know how to survive.
Ralphie and Alice, they rented a palace in the summer of '41
He drove a bus and he made such a fuss when the money was gone.
Everyone said he was chubby, "Alice, you know, he's a big fat hubby
and he plays too much pool and goes bowling on too many nights."
But he always said, "Baby, you're the greatest" and ended the fight.
Well, that little apartment, no curtains or carpet, just an icebox for holding the beers.
And Ralph was a creep, always being so cheap, even after they're married for years.
They always would fight when dinner wasn't fixed right and her mother would always draw jeers.
Well, he'd just threaten soon to send her to the moon, but it's always the same in the end.
His big harebrained scheme would blow up his big dream, but Norton still stood by his friend.
He'd say, "I'm a moax," but soon he would coax Alice right back in his arms again.
Ralphie and Alice, despite all the malice, stayed together through '55.
And then we could see on CBS-TV all the laughs in their life.
The writing and acting were clever, and the reruns insure that they'll still be together
even today, after Jackie and Audrey have died.
Oh, and that's all I heard about Ralphie and Alice.
It sure beats the hell out of "South Park" or "Dallas."
And here we all are, watching Ralphie and Alice tonight!
Moo goo gai pan, buckets of rice, the Hong Kong Gardens sure is nice.
I'll meet you anytime you want in our Chinese restaurant.
And, except for Audrey Meadows' blouse often being tight enough to show points, they've kept us laughing for half a century with no sex references. It is possible!
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Voting Breakdown
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| 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | ||||||||
| 3 | 0 | 0 | 0 | ||||||||
| 4 | 3 | 3 | 3 | ||||||||
| 5 | 7 | 7 | 7 |
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A laugh riot. Only one qualm: The Audrey Meadows tidbit at the end isn't a pleasant sight when pictured in my head. :-[
I gave the low pacing score, so let me bring credibility. Here are some suggested changes to the first few lines to improve it. Buckets of Rice, Chicken lo mein, Perhaps a little Chow Fun is your game We can eat near Chauncey Street in our old familiar place Ralph and Ed, Face to face
I'm tellin' ya, Jonathan, back in '55 and '56, Audrey was HOT. (Or, as they said then, a real doll!) She was only 31, not the old battleaxe overdosing on Miss Clairol Red who finally got the mother-in-law treatment from Ted Knight on "Too Close for Comfort" in the Eighties. You'll notice Ralph was always seeing guys gawk at her, even when they weren't! Check out "Brother Ralph," when he gets laid off (Can't blame that one on any Bush) and she goes to work in an otherwise all-guy office. Or "The Man From Space," where she dresses up as a little girl (but no 12-year-old would dress that way, even then). Ralph gets steamed! Speaking of things that get steamed, like rice, MTH figured it out: I'm not a big fan of Chinese food, which he could see had thrown a monkey wrench into the rhyme. A very appropriate comment. And what do you call those "buckets," anyway? I'm not a fan of Chinese food, but I'll forever be a Honeymoonie.
Rest in peace, Art Carney, alias Ed Norton of "The Jackie Gleason Show" and "The Honeymooners" from 1950 to 1957, born November 4, 1918, died November 9, 2003. His first film was "Pot of Gold" in 1941, his last was "The Last Action Hero" in 1993. Arnold Schwarzenegger didn't kill him. Maybe it was long-term poisoning from all the fumes while working in the sewer. Carney won Best Actor for "Harry and Tonto" in 1974, and appeared in my favorite TV commercial of all time: The Coke ad (though I'm a Pepsi drinker) in which an old man plants a pinecone and convinces his grandson that it became the Rockefeller Center Christmas Tree. Pittsburgh Steeler fans: He played team founder-owner Art Rooney in "Fighting Back: The Story of Rocky Bleier," with Robert Urich in the title role. As Ralph would say, "So long, pal o' mine."
So Art just died five days after turning 85? Wow, that's news to me.
Excellent, I gotta make note of this parody in my version of the song coming soon. :c)
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