Bert Parks hilarity

Since this is a serious political blog, I know you came here to look at YouTube clips of hilarious things that were on television 40 years ago.

A while back, I told you about an uproarious performance from The Lawrence Welk Show in which Mary Lou Metzger did a ridiculous dance around Richard Maloof as he played a tuba. Now I've found something that's even funnier, if you can imagine that!

It's from the telecast of the 1976 Miss America pageant. In this clip, host Bert Parks performed the Paul McCartney & Wings song "Let 'Em In"...



If you're not rolling on the floor in a helpless fit of guffawing after watching that, your laugh tendons must be broken!

It appears as if Mr. Parks was actually lip-synching, judging by his strange mouth contortions and the apparent mistakes. His dancing is goofy too. He looks like he's about to start breakdancing during the horn solo but just can't find the right rhythm.

There's some speculation that Bert Parks absolutely hated the Beatles - so he intentionally made this performance as ridiculous as possible. His #1 goal in life appears to have been to make anything associated with Paul McCartney look utterly preposterous.

Quite frankly, I don't remember ever seeing Bert Parks hosting a Miss America broadcast, because I was quite young when they canned him. I do remember people talking about him a lot, but I just thought he was some celebrity who happened to have the same name as a Sesame Street character. Which reminds me of something cool I used to do whenever I heard "Let 'Em In" on the radio. I always used to change the line about "Uncle Ernie" to "Bert and Ernie." I remember having a big conversation with some college schoolmates about how hilarious it was to change the lyrics.

Ranks right up there with, "Tryin' hard to look like Mr. Hooper."