Martin Mull -- Most hearing that name would think of his movies: "My Bodyguard" "Clue", "FM" or even "Rented Lips". But he's also a writer, an artist, and a hell of a musician.Versatile enough to shift from a rhumba ("Partly Marion") to down home gospel ("Jesus Christ, Football Star") without skipping a beat.
Back in 1977, my brother George gave me a copy of "No Hits, Four Errors" for Christmas. Thus began my dedication to Mr. Mull's comedy albums. At the time, he still toured. Eventually acting took more of his time, and he put his guitar (and ukelele) away. In "Clue", he played Col. Mustard, in "Mr. Mom" he was Teri Garr's boss and in "My Bodyguard" he was Chris Makepeace's dad.
Currently he can be seen playing the part of Principal Kraft on "Sabrina, the Teenage Witch" and also is in the cast of the new "Ellen" show.
Unindicted Co-conspirators
Partial list of people that Martin Mull has worked with over the years: Levon Helm, Tommy Morgan, Harry Shearer, Rob Reiner, Terry Southern, Libby Titus, Frank DeVol, Ed Wise, Melissa Manchester, Steve Martin, Peter Frampton, Steven Tyler, Robert W. Morgan, Billy Crystal, Richard Tee, Alice Playten, Tom Waits and Ed Begley, Jr. And that's just on record albums.
Still looking for info on...
Mystery Marty appearance: MartyFan Roger B. recently sent me a note asking about a one-hour special that MM did with Fred Willard at the Iowa State Fair. Roger says that this was in the early 90s. Anyone with info on this, please let me know.
Martin's address
The most frequent request I get (after lyrics to "Fruit") is for Martin's address. I don't have one. Forgot to get one from him when I talked to him. But here is a fan mail address I gleaned from some site or another:
Martin Mull
c/o Viacom Productions
100 Universal City Plaza, Bldg 506, Suite E
Universal City, CA 91608
New stuff
A pretty definitive article by Gregory Grahl on MMs record albums appeared in issue #26 (Aug/Nov02) of Cool and Strange Music. If you can't find a copy on the newsstand (I picked mine up at Borders Books) you might try their website While I'm at it, I'd like to thank them for the new pix on the page..
New category! -- I've added a section on Martyquotes in the reference section.
Where to find it:
On this page you can find many aspects of Martin's multiple talents, starting with a listing of his records and CDs, and his books. Those familiar with his work as an actor will find info on this page, too. Others who may be unfamiliar with his paintings and drawings can see some of his work and find museums that are showing his work. Finally, you can read about my personal encounters with Marty, as well as reference books and websites with info on Martin and the bulletin board that I set up.
In Performance
The curtain opens on a nearly empty stage. In the center is a ratty old armchair
that would have been at home at Grandma's, right down to the antimacassars.
A small endtable sits beside it, a small lamp completes the scene.
Then Martin Mull comes on stage. Tall, blonde and mustached -- he looks more
like a high school teacher than a musician. He sits down and begins to talk.
And talk. He tends to take as much time to introduce each song as he does
to play it.
To pay his expenses while Martin was still an art student at the Rhode Island
School of Design, he started to perform his music in clubs, colleges and
places where he was billed as "plus opening act". Eventually he made eight
albums and a handful of 45s.
Martin
Mull Capricorn Records CP-0106 (1972)
Ventriloquist Love; Eggs; Miami; Livin' Above My Station; Loser's Samba;
Dancing in the Nude; Partly Marion; (I Made Love to You in a) Former Life;
Margie the Midget; Hors D'Oeuvre; Songwriter's Blues (Duet for piano and
janitor).
Martin Mull
and His Fabulous Furniture in Your Living Room (1973)
Intro by Billy Barty;"Dueling Tubas"; A Simple Carpenter; "Licks Off of Records";
Return of the Big Bands; "2001 Polka"; Blues;"Ukelele Blues;Bert Parks; "Billy
One-eye";"(How Could I Not Miss)a Girl Your Size"; Martin, Leon and John;
"My Wife"; "Ah, France"; Something; "The Nothing"; (212) 349-8753; "Eyes
of My Dog"
This was the first of MM's vinyl albums to make it to CD. Currently out of print.
Normal Capricorn CP 0126 (1974)
Normal; Wood Shop; Dialing for Dollars; Woodstock Samba; Rome and Bored;Flexible;
Jim 'n I; Drunkard's Waltz; The Blacks are Giving Me the Blues;Birthday;
Jesus Christ Football Star; Ego Boogie; You Play Rhythm
In the Soop
Vanguard Records VSD 79338 (1974)
Auto Mechanic; Consuela Was a Mexican; Marilyn; 98 Pound Weekend; Magazines;
The Nothing (Half-time Entertainment); Garbage; Tuna Fish Salad; Policeman's
Ball; Margie the Midget; Captain Soup.
Days of Wine and Neuroses Capricorn CP 0155 (1975)
Call Me Up; Laundromat Blues; Jesus is Easy; Noses Run in My Family; Just
Tonight; (I've Slept with) Thousands of Girls; Do the Dog; Show Me Yours
(I'll Show You Mine); My Own Review; Nurse!; Just a Dream
I'm Everyone
I Ever Loved ABC/MCA AB-997 (1977) [album] WWLGH1120x [CD]
Honor Roll; They Never Met; I'm Everyone I Ever Loved; Get Up, Get Down;
Bombed Anyway; Artist Relations (Or, Don't Write Me at Home); The Humming
Song; Men; The Boogie Man; Buy Me a Drink; Michelle.
All Songs written by Martin Mull, except: Honor Roll; Get Up, Get Down; and
Boogie Man composed by Martin Mull and Eddie Wise. "Men" was co-written with
Steve Martin. "Michelle" written by John Lennon and Paul McCartney.
No Hits, Four Errors Capricorn CPN 0195 (1977)
Licks Off Of Records; Eggs; The Blacks Are Giving Me the Blues; Margie the
Midget; Ukelele Blues; Flexible; Jesus is Easy; Normal; Miami; Dueling Tubas;
Hors D'Oeuvre; Santafly.
Sex and Violins ABC Records AA-1064 (1978)
Birds Gotta Swim; I Haven't the Vegas Idea; The Mother-in-law Song; Trailer
Waltz; Dogs; The Best of You; I'll Do the Samba; Westward Ho!(co-written
with Steve Martin.); Cleveland (Revisited).
A more symphonic side of Martin. Arranged and conducted by Frank DeVol. DeVol
(aside from composing TV theme songs for "My Three Sons" and others) played
Happy Kyne, the bandleader on Martins talk show parody, "Fernwood 2Night"
(later "America 2Night"). Harry Shearer appears as the spokesbeing for ABC
Records
Perfect/Near
Perfect Elektra 6E-200 (1979)
Bun and Run(No. 1)("Daddy's Back"); Don't Put Off 'til Tomorrow; Pig in a
Blanket; This Takes the Cake; The Fruit Song; Bun and Run(No. 3)("Happy Cows");
Bernie Don't Disco; It's all Behind Me Now; I Found It; Life is Better Than
Death.
Santafly/Santa Doesn't Cop Out on Dope Capricorn CPR 0037 (1973)
Dueling Tubas/2001 Polka (maybe)
In the Eyes of My Dog(Human Version)/In the Eyes of My Dog(Dog Version)
Livin' Above My Station / Ventriloquist Love Capricorn CPR 0015
The Humming Song / Get Up, Get Down ABC AB-12304
Boogie Man ABC AB-12251
Same song both sides, both side A
Time 3:22 on one side, 3:10 on the other (?!?)
Bernie Don't Disco / Bun & Run #1 ; Bun & Run # 3 Elektra E-46057
At the time that I first put together this page, there were no CDs of Martys
stuff. Rhino records had a couple of his tracks on their collections: "Men"
appears on their American Comedy Box and "Santa Doesn't Cop out
on Dope" appears on Have a Nice Christmas: Holiday Hits of the
70s.
Martin
Mull and his Fabulous Furniture in your Living Room
This all changed lwhen Capricorn records re-released the "Fabulous Furniture"
album. A good choice, since it showed Martin doing his act in his usual nightclub
mode. But, because of that, there weren't that many actual songs on there.
Sadly, this wonderful CD is now out-of-print. There are still a few sources
online, like The Songsearch CD Store
that still have it in stock.
Mulling it Over -- A Musical Ouvre-View of Martin Mull (82178-2)
Then Razor and Tie released a true greatest hits volume, taking full advantage
of the storage capacities of CDs. This one only pulls from the albums he
did for Capricorn, so item's like "The Humming Song" and "Men" don't make
an appearance. Recently I wrote that this disc is currently out of print.
I just couldn't find it in the Razor and Tie catalog. It is still listed
on amazon.com.
Normal; Ventriloquist Love; A Simple Carpenter; Licks Off Of Records; Miami;
Margie The Midget; Dueling Tubas; Jesus Christ, Football Star; Flexible;
Partly Marion;Do The Dog; Santafly; Straight Talk About The Blues; Ukelele
Blues; Jesus Is Easy; Eggs; Dancing In The Nude; Santa Doesn't Cop Out On
Dope; Noses Run In My Family; Hors D' Oeuvre
When I saw Martin recently at the Dallas Video Festival he said that he first
found out about this release when a friend had told him that he had picked
up the disc.
I'm Everyone I Ever Loved
Martin's brilliant
1977 album was released on CD in June 2002..
Collector's
Choice Music is currently offering the disc on their website and you
can buy it online at
Laugh.com,
George Carlin's site which sells recorded mirth.
This album features comedy bits by Rob Reiner, Alice Playten and Tom Waits.
*******************************************************************************************
Double Standard String Band (VENT027)
A new release of MM material has the earliest material. Mostly bluegrass-style, with a little rockabilly. Martin teamed up with Les Daniels (who appears on many of his latter albums). Sam Tidwell and Bob Tidwell round out the group. Tracks 3, 5, 7 and 10 feature only Daniels and Rick Lee.
Cleveland, Cowboy Song, First Base (Louisville Slugger), The Sultan of Badenkill, Mr. Moonstone, I Just Broke Jail, Sentimental Value, I Might Have Changed My Mind, Chinese New Year Waltz, Country Lass, The Perfect Song, The Coyote Kid, Harrolan's Mare, The Great Bellevue Murder Mystery, Pants, Breakdown of Society.
Tracks 3, 4, 5, 6 7 and 12 were written by Daniels and the rest were written by Daniels and MM. "Harrolan's Mare" is Trad.
Order from: J. Alexander: PO Box 170; Barrington, RI 02806 ($14.00 postpaid)
*******************************************************************************************
Give Me Your Hump! The Unspeakable Terry Southern Record
Super Martyfan Ed Grant submitted this item:
This was released on CD (despite the title) by Koch Progressive. It's available on amazon and through the Terry Southern website run by his son Nile, www.terrysouthern.com I'm a major fan of both Southern and Mull, so this is a terrific union (also love the late "Mr. Mike" Michael O'Donoghue, who appears on the album). I'm sure you know about Southern's work in one way or another (he cowrote the screenplay for "Dr. Strangelove" and "Easy Rider" among others), but if you don't, here's a quick self-plug: an article I wrote that's on the time.com website.
Anyway, Mull appears as "Guy Grand" on the track "The Parking Ticket" which is an excerpt from the book "The Magic Christian." Peter Sellers played the role his own way (brilliantly) in the 1968 movie, but Martin has nailed the exact tone of Southern's piece--an eccentric American millionaire whose goal in life is to discover everyone's "price" (he likes to "make it hot for them"). The album was recorded a few years back (Southern died in the mid-'90s), and has been awaiting a distribution deal for a time (also has Allen Ginsberg, another late author, on it). Best tracks are Mull's "Christian," two insane Jonathan Winters pieces (in which Kafka meets Freud), and Southern's own reading of the title piece, an anarchic sex scene from "Candy."
***
Thanks, Ed! I might add to Ed's comments my favorite piece of trivia(also mentioned in Ed's article): Terry Southern is the only living person (other than the Beatles) to appear on the cover of "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band". He's the dude with the cool shades.
A listing of current TV appearances for Marty can be found at: Martin Mull TV Appearances
"Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman"
Norman Lear's parody of soap operas. Martin appeared during it's run in 1976-77 as a really nasty character -- a role I have yet to see any of. Fans of that show and Martin's talk show parody (below), will want to check out Fernwood Central.
The Museum of Television and Radio in New York City ran a marathon screening all 325 episodes of MH,MH. . I would appreciate hearing from anyone who got to see any of this.
Fernwood
2Night and
America
2Night -- I've transferred my listings on these shows over to
TVTome, a TV show database
In 1977 and 1978, Martin appeared as the host of a parody of talk-shows,
first known as Fernwood 2Night and then as America 2Night .
His sidekick on the show was played by Fred Willard. He also did the
series "History of White People in America". But I guess most of Amurrica
is familiar with him as the huckster, er, spokesbeing for Red Roof Inns.
(I wonder how he feels about being replaced by a bobblehead doll?)
Domestic Life
This sitcom was produced by Steve Martin and which he created with MM. CBS
ran it in three different timeslots between January and September 1984.
Family Dog
Animated series produced by Steven Spielberg and Tim Burton which was spun
off of Spielberg's "Amazing Stories" series. The above link has more production
information on the short-lived series. Martin did one of the voices.
Rosanne
Starting in 1991, Martin played a recurring character on Rosanne: Leon Carp, Rosanne's gay boss.
*****************************************
TV Specials
Sixty Minutes to Kill
Television special, around Fall 1978, with guests Flo and Eddie(AKA The
Turtles)
Sweet Steaks; Licks off of Records; Bun n Run; USPO; Do the Dog; Eleanor
(Flo and Eddie); Hors D'Oeuvre; Noses Run in My Family; Normal; Flexible;
The Nothing; Girls in My Dreams.
Produced as part of the "Soundstage" series.
A History of White People in America
Two cable specials which were also released as books (see above) and an audio tape. The cable specials won the Cable Ace and Writer's Guild Awards.
These days
Martin concentrates more on his first love, which is art. He had a showing
once in the restroom of a gallery called "I'll be Art in a Minute". Here
are some sites that focus on this side of Marty.
Catalogs for sale -- Even if you can't afford an original Martin Mull, you can have some quality copies. Here's a listing for three catalogs from past exhibitions.
Martin
Mull Reference Page
Beitzel
Gallery
My first personal encounter with Marty and it went like this.
It was at a small venue in North Dallas. I was with Kitty Zimmerman and my
brother Ben.
As he did on the Fabulous Furniture album, he did the routine where he talks
about the biggest thing in the performers life is the thing that he can't
ask for: being loved enough to be brought back for an encore. And on "ask
for" he gives a broad wink and so forth. And when he's brought back for that
encore, he comes back "amazed".
Just before he does that final song, someone sent him up a tray with about
six shots of tequila on it. He did a shot, then played his "last" song. And
he did a shot before each of the encores. There were more than one. I can
remember that one of the encore tunes was "Licks Off Of Records". Each of
the "famous licks" at the end of the song sounded good to me.
Once it was clear that it truly was Martin's last encore, I took up a position
in the lobby, waiting for him to autograph my cover to "No Hits, Four Errors".
Kitty was not pleased with the delay.
Finally, he came out and I walked up to him. I'm only five-seven (and a half),
so I only came up to his neatly trimmed mustache.
"Autograph my album, Mister Mull?"
He fixed a bleary eye on me. "You got a pen?"
He had me there. I had assumed that all celebrities carried a pen around,
in case some jerk wants his/her autograph. I looked around for help.
"I tell you what. I'll just tear it." He makes a small tear in the cover.
"That's my tear."
By then someone had produced a pen and Martin added a "signature". If I hadn't
witnessed it myself, I wouldn't believe it was a signature at all.
But my signature wouldn't be so hot either, after five shots of tequila.
My second encounter with Marty was at the
Dallas Video
Festival.
Ed Grant informs me of three books that mention Martin's comedy work written
by Ronald L. Smith. Ed says that the Comedy Record Price Guide "both
praises and disses Mull" and the Who's Who in Comedy "praises Mull
much more (he let loose in the "Price Guide" volume)". Ed says that the "Who's
Who" is now being discounted in various chain bookstores. A third book by
Smith is Stars of Stand-up, which the author says is so obscure "You'll
probably only find it in the Lincoln Center Library." Thanks for the references,
Ed!!!
Music
While there's no sheet music that I'm aware of, OLGA does have the chords and lyrics for three of Martin's songs: "Hors D'Oeuvre", "Loser's Samba" and "My Wife".
Quotation section
I've got a number of emails from Martyfans which ask me to verify a quote attributed to Martin Mull. The one that comes up the most is a non Martyquote. "Writing about art is like dancing about architecture". (This is from memory, so be gentle when/if correcting me) While this does appear in his book Paintings, Drawings and Words, it is a part of a story he tells in the introduction to the book..
This department will pull together a number of websites that feature Martyquotes.
Brainyquote -- a database of quotes, this includes a few of Martin's classic quips and aphorisms.
Martin Goes and Does Where It's At -- Classic bartender and drunk bit between MM and Tom Waits. It's not what you think: Martin is the drunk one.
Awards
On March 23, 2000 the Dallas Video Festival honored Martin Mull with the
Ernie Kovacs award. Previous recipients include Joel Hodgson of "Mystery
Science Theatre 3000" and Paul Reubens. A copy of his
acceptance
speech can be found Yahoo! Broadcast, as well as an
interview
with Marty that was done at the same time. My experiences at DVF2000 can
be perused at
Dallas Video Festival.
I have set up a BBS for the MartyFans at Yahoo!. Just stroll on over
to the
Martin
Mull Appreciation Society
Russ Josephson for the "Fabulous Furniture" GIF.
Cool and Strange Music for
the other pix on the website.
Bart Weiss of the Dallas Video Festival for the passes and for his
patience.
Deuce Livers and Andrew Palidwor for track info on missing albums.
Thanks also
to the
Warped Vinyl Junkie for the link from his page.
And extra special thanks to Lindsay Crane for tapes, links and other info.
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Philip B. Stephens
Copyright ©: 2002. Philip B. Stephens
Revised Nov. 29, 2002.