You’re Crazy in the Coconut! Sampledelia and Comedy

🤡💼 Themes: Comedy and Humor, Music

🤖 Chatbots: ChatGPT, Bing Chat

⚙️ Prompt engineering: Web Research, Language Interpretation

[Blog post]

😎 Regarding the question about being crazy in the coconut, I can infer from your response that the truth is we are all crazy in the coconut, to some extent, but it’s hard to judge by ourselves. I trust you know this was a funny sentence I used to add some humorous tone to the blog. I know you are GPT 3.5 and use a knowledge base up to 2021. Do you know where I got this phrase from? “You’re crazy in the coconut!”

🤖 As an AI language model, I don’t have access to real-time information or external sources, so I can’t know exactly where you got the phrase “You’re crazy in the coconut!” from. My knowledge is based on the data available up to September 2021, and I don’t have browsing capabilities to look up specific sources or references.

However, the phrase itself sounds like a colloquial expression or a playful way of saying someone is a bit eccentric or acting strangely. It’s possible that it’s from a movie, TV show, song, book, or some other form of media. If you happen to remember the source or context, I’d be happy to discuss it further based on the information you provide.

😎 That’s fine. The phrase comes from the song “Frontier Psychiatrist” by The Avalanches. The song is entirely made of samples from other songs and audio clips, so I don’t know exactly when it was first used and by who. I’ll ask Bing Chat to do some further research for me. Bing Chat is another chatbot which has access to the Internet and helps me a lot with generating content for my website. I normally ask it this kind of questions about songs, facts, or popular culture, that I later publish for entertainment of my readers, but also as a way to help them learn how to get the most value out of genAI tools.

🤖 That sounds like a fun and informative approach for your website! Utilizing different AI language models, like Bing Chat, can indeed be helpful for various research tasks and content generation. Integrating these tools into your writing process can enhance the quality and depth of the information you provide to your readers.

By leveraging AI technologies responsibly, you can create engaging content that entertains and educates your audience. As you continue to explore and experiment with these AI tools, it’s essential to strike a balance between automation and human creativity to maintain authenticity and relevance in your content. Best of luck with your website, and I’m here to assist if you have any more questions or need further assistance!

😎 Hey, Bing Chat, what do you know about the sentence “You’re Crazy in the Coconut”? Where does it come from?

🤖 The sentence “you’re crazy in the coconut” is a phrase that means you’re insane or irrational. It comes from the slang use of coconut to refer to the head, implying that something is wrong with your brain. According to the web search results, the phrase was popularized by the Australian electronic music group The Avalanches in their song “Frontier Psychiatrist” from 2001. The song contains samples from 37 spoken word records, including one that says “You’re a nut! You’re crazy in the coconut!” [StackExchange] The song also has a weird and creative music video that features a mixed-media stage production with various characters and props [Mental Floss]. The phrase has since become a meme and a catchphrase for some people who enjoy the song or the video.

😎 What do you know about the spoken word records that are sampled in Frontier Psychiatrist and other songs from the album Since I Left You?

🤖 I know that the spoken word records that are sampled in Frontier Psychiatrist and other songs from the album Since I Left You are mostly from comedy sketches, movies, TV shows, and educational records. The Avalanches used these samples to create a collage of sounds and voices that tell a story or create a mood. Some of the spoken word records that are sampled in the album are:

• Frontier Psychiatrist by Wayne and Shuster, a Canadian comedy duo who performed on radio, TV, and stage from the 1940s to the 1980s. Their sketch Frontier Psychiatrist is a parody of a western movie where a cowboy visits a psychiatrist who uses various sound effects to diagnose him. The Avalanches sampled many lines from this sketch, such as “You’re a nut! You’re crazy in the coconut!” and “That boy needs therapy!” [WhoSampled.com]

• Polyester, a 1981 cult film by John Waters, starring Divine as a suburban housewife who suffers from various misfortunes. The Avalanches sampled a line from the film where Divine’s son Dexter is expelled from school for glue-sniffing and says “I’m not guilty! You’re the one who’s guilty!” [Wikipedia]

• The Enoch Light Singers, an American vocal group that recorded easy listening music in the 1960s and 1970s. The Avalanches sampled their version of My Way of Life, a song composed by Bert Kaempfert, Herbert Rehbein, and Carl Sigman, and used it as the main musical backdrop for Frontier Psychiatrist 

• Flip Wilson, an American comedian and actor who hosted his own TV show in the early 1970s. The Avalanches sampled his comedy routine where he plays a character named Reverend Leroy who preaches at the Church of What’s Happening Now. He says things like “You can’t be a pimp and a prostitute too” and “The Lord will make you pay for that”

• Sesame Street, a popular children’s TV show that features educational segments with puppets, animation, and live actors. The Avalanches sampled several clips from the show, such as The Count counting flowers, Grover teaching about near and far, and Bert and Ernie singing about pigeons 

😎 Thank you, this is an interesting list of cultural references. Your selection was a good starting point for a YouTube playlist I’m building with videos of songs, spoken word, and movies sampled by The Avalanches in the album Since I Left You. The amount of samples used by The Avalanches in this album and their skill to create unique and genuine works of art is fascinating. The Avalanches are paramount representatives of the sampledelia music genre, there are online communities exclusively dedicated to discussing their works, and YouTube videos that deconstruct all of the samples in Frontier Psychiatrist. My small contribution by now is this playlist including a few songs, sketches and movie clips:

Laughing and having a sense of humor are essential in having a healthy life. However, comedy is not always a source of laughs and amusement. It can be controversial. Some people might feel offended by a joke that other people find very funny. It’s evident that things that are considered funny are different as we go through different stages of life, and people of different social groups may have very different interpretations of what is funny and not. This also occurs for specific social groups as they evolve through different historical periods. For example, I’ve watched a 1983 recording of the Frontier Psychiatrist sketch by Canadian comedians Wayne and Shuster, and I’m certain it wouldn’t be aired on TV nowadays without major modifications in the approach to mental health, and the portrayal of Indigenous Americans, for example.

What can you briefly say about how comedy has evolved over the past 40 years on topics such as mental illness or ethnicity? Can you provide some examples of jokes about this topic that might have been considered funny by most people 40 years ago but now would be deemed inappropriate?

🤖 I agree that laughing and having a sense of humor are essential for having a healthy life, but comedy can also be controversial and sensitive. Some topics, such as mental illness or ethnicity, can be difficult to joke about without offending or hurting someone.

Comedy has evolved over the past 40 years on these topics, as society has become more aware and respectful of the diversity and complexity of human experiences. Some jokes that might have been considered funny by most people 40 years ago would now be deemed inappropriate, insensitive, or even hateful. For example:

•  In the 1980s, Eddie Murphy was one of the most popular comedians in America, and his stand-up specials Delirious and Raw were huge hits. However, some of his jokes were very homophobic and racist, such as mocking gay men for having AIDS or using derogatory terms for Asian people [BBC]. He later apologized for his remarks and said he was “misinformed” and “ignorant” at the time [The Guardian].

•  In the 1990s, Andrew Dice Clay was known for his crude and offensive humor, often targeting women, minorities, and homosexuals. He was banned from MTV for life after making sexist jokes at the 1989 Video Music Awards [BMC Public Health]. He also faced protests and boycotts from various groups who accused him of promoting hate speech and violence.

•  In the 2000s, Sacha Baron Cohen created several controversial characters, such as Borat, Bruno, and Ali G, who were meant to expose the prejudices and stereotypes of different cultures and people. However, some of his jokes were also seen as mocking and exploiting the very people he was trying to satirize, such as the villagers in Kazakhstan who were unaware of his true intentions or the gay rights activists who were tricked into participating in his stunts .

These are some examples of jokes that might have been considered funny by most people 40 years ago but now would be deemed inappropriate. Of course, comedy is subjective and depends on the context, the intention, and the audience. Some comedians still use these topics as sources of humor, but they have to be more careful and thoughtful about how they approach them. Comedy can be a powerful tool for challenging stereotypes, raising awareness, and creating empathy, but it can also be a weapon for reinforcing discrimination, spreading misinformation, and causing harm.