Fake Jerry Lewis and Dean Martin

Richard Metzger is the current Boing Boing guest blogger

Have you ever been walking around a 99 Cents store and seen a bottle of cheap cologne with a sticker on the box that reads: "If you like "Calvin" you'll love "Kevin!"?

Apparently the same sort of thing applied to crooner/goofball double acts in the 1950s.

Ladies and gentlemen, meet ersatz Martin and Lewis, Sammy Petrillo and 'Duke' Mitchell.

There is not very much information about these guys online, but these four links, to the Wikipedia entries for Sammy Petrillo, Duke Mitchell, an interview with Sammy Petrillo, and an interview with "Bela Lugosi Meets a Brooklyn Gorilla" director Herman Cohen are probably all you'll need.

Thanks Tara McGinley!

[#1 posted by Anonymous, March 29, 2009 4:34 PM]

Nice!

[#2 posted by Philo Beddo, March 29, 2009 6:14 PM]

Blogfoot blew the lid off this story last month:

http://rob-blogfoot.blogspot.com/2009/02/how-to-not-get-sued.html

[#3 posted by BingoTheChimp, March 29, 2009 6:43 PM]

FMU DJ extraordinaire Dave the Spazz is, to my knowledge, the world's leading authority on Sammy Petrillo:

from 1998:
http://www.wfmu.org/LCD/21/petrillo.html

from 2005:
http://blog.wfmu.org/freeform/2005/03/monday_evening_.html

from 2008:
http://blog.wfmu.org/freeform/2008/07/the-son-of-samm.html

also NYC's the Sea Monkeys released the single Nipseyland/Oh No, I'm Sammy Petrillo in 1991:
http://cgi.ebay.ch/SEA-MONKEYS-Nipseyland-1991-7_W0QQcmdZViewItemQQitemZ130287380797

I know, more info than anybody wanted!

[#4 posted by Anonymous, March 29, 2009 8:33 PM]

I got this movie for my birthday several years ago! It was terrible, but the fake Jerry Lewis was impressive.

[#5 posted by me3dia, March 29, 2009 8:45 PM]

I've seen Bela Lugosi Meets a Brooklyn Gorilla. Petrillo is very much a Jerry Lewis clone -- except a shrill, unfunny, mean-spirited one -- and Mitchell is bland in every way that Martin is charming. If they're a lesson on how not to get sued, the lesson is be terrible.

[#6 posted by Fred H, March 29, 2009 9:03 PM]

I've seen this movie poster, and couldn't understand what it was about. Having seen the trailer, I'm now even more confused. I need to rent this.

[#7 posted by Gadgets123, March 31, 2009 10:33 AM]

Ya gotta check out this tribute to Martin and Lewis, the now-famous "Blow Me A Kiss."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LENKIbKCZ_U