Dueling Banjos
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Dueling Banjos was a scene from the 1972 movie Deliverance. The scene depicts Billy Redden playing the instrumental "Dueling Banjos" (a spinoff of the classic song Yankee Doodle) opposite actor Ronny Cox on guitar. Redden plays "Lonny"- a mentally retarded, inbred, extremely gifted banjo player.
The song was arranged and performed for the movie by Eric Weissberg and Steve Mandel and was featured on the movie's soundtrack. It was originally composed by Arthur "Guitar Boogie" Smith and Don Reno as Feuding Banjos in 1955[1].
The memorable scene has become referenced and parodied in modern culture. For example, in The Perfect Castaway, an episode of Family Guy, Peter Griffin engages Michael Moore in a flatulent contest in the style of Dueling Banjos. Another example is in the computer game The Curse of Monkey Island, where Guybrush Threepwood challenges a pirate barber into a banjo duel at the Plunder Island.
[edit] References in popular culture
- Parodies of the dueling banjo scene have appeared in a number of comedy series including The Simpsons, the Irish sit com Father Ted, the animated American series Family Guy (involving flatulence), "Dueling Xylophones" by the comedian Bill Bailey, "Dueling Tubas" by Martin Mull, "Dueling Brandos" performed by John Belushi and Peter Boyle on Saturday Night Live, and the computer game The Curse of Monkey Island. Also, Robin Williams does a short called "Dueling Planets" on his Reality, What a Concept album, a skit called Dueling Carsons/Foxworthys is used on ESPN Classic's Cheap Seats, and liberal radio-host Ed Schultz uses the dueling banjos as part of a recording involving Condoleezza Rice and Colin Powell over Iraq.
- In the TV series The Simpsons, two groups of rafters get separated, one group hears the "Dueling Banjos" and a giggling noise while the viewer is able to see a shadowy figure hiding in the woods.
- In the TV series Futurama the character Bender 'sings' the tune to the "Dueling Banjos" when entering the city of Atlanta.
- In one Saturn VUE television commercial, four friends are about to car camp in the woods at night. Suddenly, the song Dueling Banjos is heard by the quartet and they quickly pack up and leave in fear. [2]
- In the movie Tiny Toon Adventures: How I Spent My Vacation the "Dueling Banjos" scene is parodied when Buster and an unamed possum duel off while Babs attempts to outrun the rest of his kin who want to cook them for supper. In addition, some other parts of the movie could also be seen as a parody of the film.
- In the 2005 film The Descent the "Dueling Banjos" tune is being played in a car when the main characters are on their way to take part in a caving expedition in the Appalachian Mountains, the same mountains in which Deliverance is set.
- The song was covered by Toy Dolls on their album Absurd-Ditties, renamed as "Drooling Banjos", which eventually escalates into a frenzied high-speed guitar solo.
- In one of his very first live concerts, "Weird Al" Yankovic performed an arrangement called "Dueling Accordions".
- In the episode of Father Ted "Good Luck Father Ted" there are random clips of a man and a strange looking boy mimicing the scene there is also a strange man dancing in the background just like in the film.The Man with the guitar also is the cameraman of the camera crew there to interview Ted.
- The punk-rock group NOFX did a cover called dueling retards.
