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While I wasn’t around when this song was popular, I remember listening to it over and over on my record player when I was around 8 or 9. My dad had a bunch of old 45 records from when he was in high school that I found and fell in love with. Kookie, lend me your comb was by far one of my favorites!
I’m not really sure why. I didn’t even know who Connie Stevens or Edd Byrnes were. But I think my 9 year old self could just tell that the guy singing was cool and dreamy!
So, now I’ve learned that the song “Kookie, lend me your comb” was a number one hit in 1958. Based on the character Edd Byrnes played on the TV show 77 Sunset Strip. The website TV Party describes the show as “the Mack-daddy of the late-fifties detective shows”.
It goes on to say “On ’77 Sunset Strip,’ former OSS officer Stu Bailey (Efrem Zimbalist, Jr.) and former undercover agent Jeff Spencer (Roger Smith) were the hip, swinging, martini-clutching private eyes that worked out of their office located at 77 Sunset Boulevard in Los Angeles. Their brand-new sports cars shared adriveway with a swinging nightspot called Dino’s, a rat-pack type hangout that was an important chick (and trouble) magnet for the boys. (Dino’s was a real life Sunset Strip restaurant named for co-owner Dean Martin.)”
Edd Byrnes character on the show was named Gerald Lloyd Kookson, II, aka Kookie. He parked cars at the Dino’s hangout in the show.
In case your wondering about the title of this post it refers to the last words of the song. According to the Urban Dictionary, ginchiest is “The attribute of being cool in the sense that others admire you for your apearance or actions or an object or situation that inspires those feelings.”
So have fun humming along to this and I hope that phrase “Kookie, Kookie? Lend me your comb” doesn’t get stuck in your head like it does mine!
Until next time,
Kathie