How Darryl Phinnessee Saved Christmas

(via Buzzfeed)

I didn’t watch the Michael Jackson memorial because I was being a working person doing work at the time of its bajillion-channel broadcast (I still love you, liveblogs.) Regardless of business hours, the strong-willed and sensible among us would agree that based on premise alone (put a coffin on a stage, have a clashy mix of celebrities sing and act sentimentally, involve the E! channel) there was no conceivable way to make it tasteful or even un-painful.

In a ceremony that looked more like an American Idol season finale than the commemoration of a really great-weird public figure, the only thing I can possibly call “good” is the resurfacing of this man, one Darryl Phinnessee. He is what would happen if the cast of Tim & Eric Awesome Show and maybe How Stella Got Her Groove Back and RAAAANDY cumswapped (um, apparently I know porn verbs) and backwardly surfed the waves of time to a whitewashed corporation in the ’90s. This person, with his heartbreaking typo of a name (would you guess it’s pronounced like ‘finesse’ or ‘Tennessee’? Both?) and hypnotizing dragon face (somebody take out the calipers and take measure of this person’s wacky skull) is also the lyrical genius behind THE FRASIER THEME SONG.

Up until today I’d really completely forgotten about the song “Tossed Salads and Scrambled Eggs.” That one is deeply nestled into the nostalgia ball pit, buried under layers and layers of more easily recalled entertainment hallmarks of yore (haha Saved by the Bell haha) and far out of most people’s reach. So I extend a cold thank you to Mr. Phhhinnesse, both for having a last name that appears to be the sound cartoon characters make when they’re falling off a cliff and for composing that hilarious turd of corporatized lounge music. More like, Phinn-YES, right? Darryl’s the only Phin I See! Ha-cha-cha!

* * *
Hey baby I hear the blues a’callin’
Tossed Salads and Scrambled Eggs

And maybe I seem a bit confused
Well, maybe, but I got you pegged

But I don’t know what to do with those
Tossed Salads and Scrambled Eggs

They’re callin’ again

– Darryl Phinnessee, memorial star