Mickey Katz

Biography

Mickey Katz (June 15, 1909 - April 30, 1985) was an American Jewish comedian who received his first moments of fame in the 1940s as a member of Spike Jones and His City Slickers; Katz was most famous for his "glugging" vocal sound effects on tunes like "Cocktails for Two" and others. He later went on to perform his own parodic musical revue and recorded highly popular "ethnic" comedy albums on the Capitol record label, where he would perform English-Yiddish parody songs. He was also recognized a...

Mickey Katz (June 15, 1909 - April 30, 1985) was an American Jewish comedian who received his first moments of fame in the 1940s as a member of Spike Jones and His City Slickers; Katz was most famous for his "glugging" vocal sound effects on tunes like "Cocktails for Two" and others. He later went on to perform his own parodic musical revue and recorded highly popular "ethnic" comedy albums on the Capitol record label, where he would perform English-Yiddish parody songs. He was also recognized as a master of the Klezmer style clarinet and had several hits during his long career. Though Katz sang primarily in Yiddish, he is often recognized as one of the godfathers of American song parody, a form which would later be advanced by the likes of Allan Sherman and, in the 1980s, by Weird Al Yankovic.

Katz was the father of Broadway legend Joel Grey and a grandfather of actress Jennifer Grey. In the early 1980s he told the story of his life in a biography called Papa Play for Me. Read more on Last.fm. User-contributed text is available under the Creative Commons By-SA License; additional terms may apply.