BY PHILLIP ZONKEL >LA.COM

Spike Jones and the City Slickers were masters of madcap music, performing satirical arrangements of popular songs.

Throughout the 1940s, 1950s and part of the 1960s, Jones, who was born in Long Beach and graduated from Poly High School in 1929, led the City Slickers as a bubble-gum chewing conductor who wielded a .32 caliber pistol or plunger as a baton and wore loud, plaid suits.

The City Slickers were a zany group of expert musicians equipped with a cache of unconventional instruments such as flit guns and bird calls, which they punctuated with sneezes and belches, among other noises.

A perfect example is their 1945 parody of "Cocktails for Two," which was written in 1934 by Arthur Johnston and Sam Coslow to celebrate the repeal of Prohibition. The beginning sounds identical to the original, very lush and romantic. It then explodes into an insane asylum of crashing bells and a chorus of hiccupping.

That song - which was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 1995 - is one example of the musical mayhem on "Spike Jones: The Legend," a new four-disc DVD set whose highlights include vintage TV appearances by Jones and the City Slickers, including two 1951 "Colgate Comedy Hour" shows and two 1952 "All Star Revue" programs.

Other wacky-oddball songs performed on the DVD are "All I Want for Christmas Is My Two Front Teeth," inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 2007, "Glow Worm," "Hawaiian War Chant" and "You Always Hurt the One You Love."

The "Colgate Comedy Hour" and "All Star Revue" TV specials also feature appearances by Liberace, Jim Backus (greedy millionaire Thurston Howell III on "Gilligan's Island"), Billy Eckstine, Gale Robbins, a young Mike Wallace and a surprise walk-on by TV pioneer Dave Garroway.

The DVD set also has commentary from City Slickers' drummer Joe Siracusaan and a CD containing two 1945, NBC-pilot radio shows, which have never been available to the public.

"My dad loved classical music and great music," says Spike Jones Jr., 57, executive producer of the box set, "but he loved to twist great music."

More like demolish it. Jones' musical maxim was, "They write 'em and I wreck 'em!"

Despite incorporating a cacophany of cow bells, car horns, hiccups and snores, the arrangements were very structured.

"Every single noise has been planned and rehearsed to make it sound the way it does," Jones said in a 1953 Press-Telegram article.

Lindley Armstrong Jones was born in Long Beach on Dec. 14, 1911. Jones' father worked with the Southern Pacific railroad, and young Lindley got his nickname from his father's friends, who thought the boy was as thin as a railroad spike, says Jordan Young, author of "Spike Jones Off the Record: The Man Who Murdered Music."

At 11, Jones, who was raised in Calexico, banged on his first set of drums. Four years later, he returned to Long Beach to attend Poly High School and rented a room at Atlantic Avenue and 16th Street.

Jones was a drum major in the school orchestra and also formed and played in his own bands, including Spike Jones and his Five Tacks and Rankin's Cadillac Eight.

Later, Jones worked as a successful studio musician, performing hundreds of gigs, including percussion on Bing Crosby's "White Christmas."

Jones fronted the City Slickers in the early 1940s, but the group's initial releases were ignored by the public. But 1942's "Der Fuehrer's Face" - with its lampooning of Adolf Hitler and a Bronx cheer - hit No. 3 on the record charts.

Eventually, this musical motley crew made more than 125 singles and sold 35 million copies.

Jones and the City Slickers, however, weren't breaking any new ground with their musical hijinks.

"It was a carry over from vaudeville shows," says Andre Larson, director of the National Music Museum at the University of South Dakota. "You could trace its roots in Europe from traveling shows. There's always been this type of music at carnivals and fairs."

By the early 1940s, at least three other groups already had established their musical lunacy: the rural Midwestern jazz outfit the Hoosier Hotshots, The Schnickelfritz Band and the Korn Kobblers. But Jones and the City Slickers received more attention and popularity because Jones was an astute businessman, Young says.

"Spike really looked at it as a business, and they had the best public relations machine," Young says.

In the early 1950s, Jones and the City Slickers brought their maniacal music into living rooms across the country. TV audiences also got a chance to see and hear Helen Grayco, Mrs. Spike Jones, a vocalist who performed classical singing. Her act was separate from the guys' sonic shenanigans, but she still witnessed the musical madness.

"Spike was such a perfectionist in all he did," says Grayco during a recent interview. "Timing was so important to him. You just prayed the props and everything would work right."

However, by the early 1960s and the arrival of rock 'n' roll, Jones and the City Slickers' popularity had declined and listeners weren't interested in his material.

Some comedians, such as Stan Freeberg, lampooned rock 'n' roll, but Jones wasn't a fan of the format and found it difficult to satire.

"He didn't get rock 'n' roll," says Jones Jr.

"How can I wreck something that has already been ruined in its original version"? Jones once asked.

At the same time, Jones, who had been rail thin for much of his life, thanks to a steady diet of cigarettes, coffee and alcohol, was in poor health, even using an oxygen tank to help him breathe. On May 1, 1965, Jones died from emphysema.

Nevertheless, Young says the group leaves a legacy of lunacy.

"His use of sound effects is spectacular," Young says. "Very few people have come close to what he did."

Phillip Zonkel, (562) 499-1258
phillip.zonkel@presstelegram.com