Song of the Day 12/10: Lenny and the Squigtones, “Night After Night”

Character actor David L. Lander, famous for his role on “Laverne & Shirley,” died last week at age 73. Lander and Michael McKean, as Andrew “Squiggy” Squiggman and Lenny Kosnowski, doofus neighbors and co-workers of the female leads, became the top-rated show’s breakout stars.

Lenny and Squiggy (originally Ant’ny Squiggliano) predated the sitcom, which ran from 1976 to 1983. Lander and McKean, who met as students in Carnegie-Mellon University’s performing arts program in 1965, developed the duo when they were in a Los Angeles radio comedy troupe, the Credibility Gap. McKean noted that they toned down their profane greaser characters so much for TV that they were almost unrecognizable. Though often referred to as creeps, especially by Laverne, they were actually just dorks — the kind who, lacking all self-consciousness, would form a doo-wop group called Lenny and the Squigtones, performing exactly the kind of parody ’50s songs you’d expect from a comedy duo with a decent guitarist (McKean was briefly a member of the baroque-pop group the Left Banke).

The ‘Tones made occasional appearances whenever the writers could contrive a situation for them, and in 1979 they actually recorded and released an LP, a rare collectors’ item today. They took the gag as far as an appearance on “American Bandstand,” where they played “King of the Cars” and “Love Is a Terrible Thing.” The performance is noteworthy for the first appearance of a certain lead guitarist from Swindon, England, later famous for his solos — he introduces himself at Dick Clark’s behest at about 3:30 on the video. He also played on the Squigtones LP, all five years before “This Is Spinal Tap” introduced Nigel Tufnel to the wider world.

Speaking of the Tap, rock’s most famous fictional band made its first appearance in that same year of 1979. They appeared in a parody of “Midnight Special” for a Rob Reiner project called “The T.V. Show,” a sketch-comedy pilot that ABC didn’t pick up. Reiner, impersonating Wolfman Jack, introduces the band, which includes Loudon Wainwright III on keyboards.