It is time to talk about Tootleg Boy!
Tootleg Boy is a collection of about 250 retarded, minute-long songs by Ben Hutchings, an exceptionally funny Australian cartoonist that you’ve never heard of because your head is up your arse. It is a CD full of MP3s and some other bits, and it looks like this:
You want to own Tootleg Boy because it is a wonderful object. It is — in the proper Hutchings style — chockers with hilarity. For instance the CD art is a Beach Boys Pet Sounds CD scanned in, and all the song titles edited to include the words ‘arse’ and ‘cocks’: Wouldn’t It Be Arse, God Only Cocks, etc. The highlight of the packaging is the lyrics booklet, which never fails to make me laugh as I read through it; laugh until my ribs hurt and my face goes numb and I have to take slow, deep breaths for a bit. Here is an excerpt:
Dick Master – I am Dick Master, I am the Penis King. I am not the king of bums or boobs or ball sacks. Come on baby let’s get jiggy yeah, come on babe feel my penis hair! Come on babe, let’s have a big fat root.
Danni Minogue – A magazine had on the front cover, Danni Minogue in leather and rubber. She has fake boobs, yuk. She does not do much except pose in magazines.
Ghosts – “Woo woo” goes the ghost who lives inside my house. You can see through it. He must be a demon from Hell. I sold my soul, oh yeah! I sold it. For $4.50 and a can of pepsi max.
It goes on like that, for several pages. Here is one of my favourites; I think it is genius:
Eight and Hot – I am eight years old and I’m feeling hot. What I really need is a middle aged wrinkly paedophile with a wife and kids. I get so turned on by fifty year olds. I am so happy they want to teach me how to love, how to fuck. They have coffee breath, they have flatulence. I love their brown slacks, I love old men. Now why can’t I be free to get fucked by some old, old wrinkly paedophiles?
If you don’t find that hilarious then I’m afraid Tootleg Boy might be a bit subtle for you. (I am serious.)
The other thing about the lyrics booklet is that some of the songs are illustrated, by the crème de la crème of Australian cartoonists, otherwise known as Ben’s friends. Me, Patrick Alexander, for example — I did a picture for a song called ‘I Am a Streetfighter’:
I Am a Streetfighter – I am a big streetfighter. I can smash your face. I don’t lose fights in the street coz God helps me get my pants on each day.
The actual songs are MIDIs plus mostly unintelligible text-to-speech singing — hours of it. It’s brilliant! I love Tootleg Boy because it is so completely, thoroughly daft and absurd: It shouldn’t exist as anything more than a silly idea in Ben’s head, quickly dismissed as pointless; as a dumb joke that would get old very quickly — but it does exist; it exists extremely. So Tootleg Boy is funny and brilliant just by existing. That it’s genuinely funny on top of that is just a bonus.
I was gonna say, “Buy his comics, too; he’s an under-appreciated genius,” but he doesn’t seem to have a shop on his website, so fuck you Ben. You can watch his videos on YouTube, though. And here too. Oh and right here:
