[1] Early American examples include Stan Freberg, who lampooned artists such as Elvis Presley, Harry Belafonte and the Platters, and Sheb Wooley.
[3] In Britain during the 1950s and early 1960s, comedians such as Charlie Drake and the Goons frequently appeared in the top ten with humorous rock 'n' roll records—the latter, along with Lewis Carroll and Edward Lear, were to influence the word-play of John Lennon's lyrics.
Later British groups specialised in comedy: these included the Scaffold, the Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band and Alberto y Lost Trios Paranoias.
[6] Two of its members, Howard Kaylan and Mark Volman, later performed more explicitly comedic songs as Flo & Eddie with their own band and with Frank Zappa.
Dan Finnerty with his the Dan Band has made comedy rock appearances in the Todd Phillips films Old School and The Hangover spoofing "Total Eclipse of the Heart" and "Candy Shop", as well as his live show, which parodies female cover songs and was filmed as a one-hour TV special directed by McG and executive produced by Steven Spielberg.
Other spoof bands such as Dread Zeppelin, Beatallica and Those Darn Accordions rely on unusual or intentionally contrasting genre-mixing for comic effect.
The virtual band Dethklok is a death metal spoof featured in the Adult Swim animated TV show Metalocalypse,[11] and their album The Dethalbum debuted at No.