Another Dead Dog Rover Joke

I guess it isn't hard to understand why "Happy Boy" by San Diego's The Beat Farmers became such a cult hit over the past 25 years. It's an earworm extraordinaire! But for me it always seems to pop up at the strangest and most unexpected times in my early life -- the last of which was a few days after Thanksgiving in 1993, while I was in the hospital right after getting my gall bladder removed. Earlier that day I had the TV on but I was so sleepy and out of it (I barely slept the two or three nights I was there) that I have no idea what was on the screen but I heard the distinct "hubba-hubba-hubba-hubba-hubba" of "Happy Boy" in the background of whatever was playing... or did I just imagine that? Either way, I couldn't get the song out of my head, and I kept hearing it in the distance, like a far-away transmission from a satellite hovering a thousand miles above. Or the hospital janitor. Holy cats, it wouldn't leave me in peace.

But later that same evening my friends just dave and S. came to visit me, and having just raided the hospital gift shop they placed a red headband with reindeer antlers on my head. (Christmas gifts already?) But to my surprise just dave pulled a long black and white "Beat Farmers" bumper sticker out of his coat pocket. Now nobody in my gang o' pals were rabid enough Beat Farmers fans to want a bumper sticker with the band's name on it, since the only song we knew by them was "Happy Boy" because it was the hidden track on some compilation CD one of us had (we never even knew the name of the song until years later) and was occasionally played on the then-local "alternative" radio station in the early 90's. So not only did just dave have a Beat Farmers sticker after just being haunted by that song earlier that morning in a post-op haze, but he secretly slapped the sticker underneath the sliding tray-table attached to my hospital bed, where I'd eat my meals or read. Luckily the hospital staff never noticed, but every time I lifted my tray-table to slide it down I'd see that bumper sticker and that infectiously cursed "hubba-hubba-hubba-hubba-hubba" would run through my head. And subsequently, throughout the rest of my stay in the hospital. Now that's an effective earworm.



When a Facebook friend of mine posted this video on his wall last night, it sparked a lengthy conversation with many contributors remembering "Happy Boy" and how they had always felt like they were one of the few people in the world who knew about it, since so few people seemed to understand the "hubba-hubba-hubba-hubba-hubba" reference. Or that anyone might make a cult hit song out of a dog being run over by a car. But there you have it, and since last night the song is back in my head again. And there you have my "Happy Boy" story, or at least my most memorable one. Now go out and make your own.