I’m working my way through all the episodes of “The Muppet Show” on Disney+ and I noticed that when a Muppet picks up a musical instrument, they almost always play left-handed. Kermit plucks banjo strings with his left flipper in “The Muppet Movie.” In The Electric Mayhem, Janice and Floyd hold their guitars like lefties, although Floyd’s sax grip looks like a rightie. (It’s tough to tell with drums and impossible with keyboards.) Scooter plays guitar to the left. Marvin Suggs plays the Muppahone with the mallet in his left hand. Even The County Trio – Muppets that look like, and are puppeted by, Jim Henson, Frank Oz, and Jerry Nelson – all play like southpaws.

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I’m looking forward to the end of July and the release of Los Lobos’ new album, “Native Sons.” The band has gone back and recorded covers of Los Angeles bands and musicians that influenced them at the start. So far, there have been previews of songs originally by Thee Midniters, The Beach Boys, and Barrett Strong, who co-wrote “Papa Was a Rollin’ Stone,” “I Heard It Through the Grapevine,” and Edwin Starr’s “War.” This is Barrett’s “Misery.”

“Native Sons” also includes covers of Buffalo Springfield, Jackson Brown, and The Blasters (which used to include now-Los Lobos member Steve Berlin). This isn’t the first covers album for Los Lobos. They released “Los Lobos Goes Disney” back in 2009 and I directed an unofficial music video for “Heigh-Ho” that actually had all the members of Los Lobos in it. You can go back and read the original post here.

Last night, I was re-watching the first of Disney’s Dexter Riley trilogy, 1969’s “The Computer Wore Tennis Shoes.” If you haven’t seen it – or even if you have – Kurt Russell plays Dexter, a college kid who accidentally gets a punch-card mainframe shocked into his brain and uses all that new mental ability to … win a college game show. Dexter had accidents two more times in later movies – becoming invisible in 1972’s “Now You See Him, Now You Don’t” and eating super-vitamin cereal in 1975’s “The Strongest Man in the World.”

In the middle of “The Computer Wore Tennis Shoes,” I spotted a familiar face and heard a familiar voice. Olan Soule was playing a reporter, but you might know him as John Masters, choir director on “The Andy Griffith Show” – or as the timid professor or bank teller or clerk in a million shows. Here he is, using that face to sell the sexiest of products, prune juice.

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Most folks recognize Fran Drescher’s exaggerated Queens accent from “The Nanny.” I think it’s safe to say she heightens it for comedy, especially the nasal quality, but at the core, it’s how she talks. Here’s an interview from 2018.

Of course, Drescher’s an actress, so she’s learned to ramp it up – or tamp it down – as needed. In her film debut, 1977’s “Saturday Night Fever” it’s not quite so exaggerated when John Travolta drops an f-bomb on the dance floor.

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“Aruba, Jamaica, Ooh, I wanna take ya…”

It’s one of the sloppiest rhymes in pop music and The Beach Boys’ last #1 hit. You might remember “Kokomo” from the Tom Cruise flair bartending movie, “Cocktail,” but did you know the music video was shot in Orlando at Walt Disney World?

It’s 1988 and Disney’s Grand Floridian Resort was built, but not yet open. The white sand beach would be a perfect place to fake a Beach Boys concert and with no one staying there, production could make all the noise they wanted. A friend who was on-set tells me it was rainy all day, so the sunny concert scene turned into a nighttime bonfire party.

Some of the guys and gals dancing along with Mike Love and the Boys were recruited at Downtown Disney (now Disney Springs) and yes, big Disney fan John Stamos is playing various percussion in the back.

Non-Orlando trivia – Credited writers on “Kokomo” include Mike Love, Scott McKenzie (“San Francisco – Be Sure to Wear Flowers in Your Hair”), John Phillips (The Mamas & The Papas), and Terry Melcher (the song’s producer who also did The Byrds’ first two albums).