Comments (0)Lisa Kudrow
What Stinks?
October 2, 2009
Some songs just have an extended shelf-life, sticking around way longer than they should. Infectious melodies, semi-memorable lyrics, mind-numbingly accessible beats that simply stay in your head. Like milk cartons, they should have expiration dates, but that’s not the case.
A couple of prime examples? “Mambo No. 5,” “Jessie’s Girl,” “The Macarena,” “Achy Breaky Heart,” the theme songs from “The Brady Bunch” and “The Jeffersons,” just to name a mere few.
And then there’s that ‘90s chestnut “Smelly Cat,” the shell of a parody folk song performed semi-regularly on “Friends” by Phoebe Buffay (as portrayed by the lovely Lisa Kudrow). Who can forget those intoxicatingly inane lyrics: “Smelly Cat, Smelly Cat/What are they feeding you?/Smelly Cat, Smelly Cat/It’s not your fault.” (Not exactly “Like A Rolling Stone.”)
But it seems that wherever Ms. Kudrow goes, requests come forth for the always out-of-tune “Smelly Cat.” And at the recent “Rock A Little Feed A Lot” benefit concert for Feeding America, the country’s largest hunger relief charity, the 46-year-old actress performed the immortal dirge to an aromatic feline.
Seems Ms. Kudrow was at L.A.’s Club Nokia with ex-“Friends” co-star Courteney Cox Arquette to introduce the great (and seemingly ubiquitous) Sheryl Crow.
Suddenly, Ms. Cox Arquette gave Ms. Kudrow an acoustic guitar and an audience member yelled, “Play `Smelly Cat’!”
At first, Phoebes -– oops, we mean Lisa -– was a bit confused and asked, “Is this a set-up?” But then she managed to launch into the tune that put her on the musical map.
Natch, the audience went nuts. Sometimes, you’ve just gotta give the people what they want.