Some of my longtime friends have started a fun little project, a podcast all about fake bands in pop culture. Well, really, it started from a website way back in the early 2000s, a site started just to document made-up bands in movies and TV and other culture called fakebands.com. Then it became a book! It’s a lot of fun, and they just had me on to talk about some of the more famous cars of fake bands. We cover some of the greats, like The Blues Brothers’ Bluesmobile, the Amphicats piloted by the terrifying furries of the Banana Splits, the OMG-worthy GTO that is the Monkeemobile, and more. It’s worth a listen! I mean, what could it hurt?
For our particular audience, all of you oil-saturated gearheads, with overdeveloped left calves from clutch-pushing, it may be fun to listen to me explain things that I think we all take for granted, like landau bars and the Chicken Tax, to some non-gearhead normies.
The cars we do cover are ones that, mostly, I bet you’ve heard of: the Bluesmobile from the Blues Brothers, the Partridge Family DeStijl-inspired bus, the Monkeemobile, the Doof Wagon from Mad Max:Fury Road, and more, including a couple really obscure ones.
To get you in the mood, let’s recall the majesty of the Doof Wagon, a converted MAN KAT 1 A1 8×8 missile launcher truck:
…and to change the mood a little, maybe appreciate the Electric Mayhem’s International bus in its natural habitat:
While I know David would like me to write about all the stuff we discussed on the podcast here, in lovely text-and-picture form, I’m still at the hospital and they’re connecting a whole new IV bag of magnesium sulfate, so I’m going to just encourage you to listen, take a moment and really revel in the audio-ness of it all, which you can do right here, or, if you want, whatever podcasting setup you prefer. Knowing you, it’s probably something where you dub it to cassettes and play it on your Walkman.
It’s a generally great podcast, so I’d encourage you to follow them and keep listening for your limited non-car media needs! Which you should have, I guess.
I just watched my DVD of Spinal Tap yet again yesterday…I love that movie, it’s so hilarious! “These go to 11” “…there was a Stonehenge monument on the stage that was in danger of being crushed by a dwarf” “No, we’re not gonna fucking do Stonehenge tomorrow!”
I love Blues Brothers too, it’s one of the best movies ever made
What about the Bobby Fleet and His Band with a Beat from The Andy Griffith Show, in their six door 1947 Cadillac Airport Limo?
Does the Monkeemobile identify itself as a charabanc with it’s three row of seats and soft top? By the way, looks of it are a weird mix of hot rod, kustom and muscle car that somehow work quite good in a cartoonish way.
Ooo, I got one. “The Tank”, which was Mystik Spiral’s 1980’s GM Vandura.
According to Trent, “They’re thinking of changing their name”.
I’m not sure is they count as a fake band or not, but the KLF claimed that their 1988 record “Doctorin’ the Tardis” was written by their (ex-police) Ford Galaxie.
(They released it under the name of “The Timelords”, and claimed it was nothing to do with the KLF/K Foundation/The Justified Ancients of Mu Mu/The JAMS/etc., so it was kind of a fake band
Not the weirdest thing the KLF ever got up to, by any means.)
The Electric Mayhem’s International bus is, as the kids say, fire.
Dethklok has a whole bunch of vehicles at their disposal. Dethbus, Dethlimo, the 5 person motorcycle thing.
Dethklok is a real band but sadly their vehicles are still fictional.
Haven’t listened to the podcast yet, but I hope you remembered the interdimensional, jet-powered, Ford F-350 piloted by the lead singer of The Hong Kong Cavaliers in “The Adventures of Buckaroo Bonzai Across the Eighth Dimension.”
Also, didn’t Wayne and Garth have their own band? So AMC Pacer?
Can Be Yours!
1987 Dodge Ram B250 Van from School of Rock
https://bringatrailer.com/listing/1987-dodge-b250-school-of-rock/
Not anymore. $21k+?!?!
Yikes dude.
I’m very disappointed the Leningrad Cowboys aren’t listed. They had cool wheels, a hearse in Leningrad Cowboys Go America and a sort of hippy bus in Leningrad Cowboys Meet Moses. Also they played Sweet Home Alabama with the Red Army chorus.
They probably exist in a gray area as an actual band The Sleepy Sleepers who rebranded for the movie and then ran with the gag
The blues mobile had a healthy thirst for bridge shenanigans. Good thing, too. I don’t think Jake would have truly and fully accepted the blues mobile had it not both jumped the 95th street bridge and made the Illinois nazis jump off the Jackson Park bridge into the drink. I hate Illinois nazis.
This is even before the hilarious over-the-top bridge scene near the end of the movie that marks the end of said nazis as they fall from a fictional bridge hundreds (thousands?) of feet higher than the sears tower. Great stuff!
Bet the 440 plant had a healthy thirst for fuel too. “It’s 106 miles to Chicago. We have a full tank of gas, half a pack of cigarettes, its dark and we’re wearing sunglasses.” They should have made it.
That bridge the Nazi Pinto flew off was in Milwaukee. Yes, the Illinois Nazis chased Jake & Elwood 98 miles north, and then Elwood drove back to Chicago in like 4 minutes.
That bridge still is in Milwaukee.
Did they ever finish it?
They did! But it still kinda goes nowhere.
Ivan and the Terribles. ‘60’s GM Van. Name the movie for the win!
More specific than De Stijl: that bus is straight-up inspired by Piet Mondrian, especially “Composizione, 1921.”
https://miro.medium.com/v2/resize:fit:1131/1*cXZURUeagvhSi-qU4fyHTA.jpeg
Here is the Monkeemobile after Andrew Eldritch got ahold of it:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-EunWH1VbpA
That is probably the LEAST Gothic vehicle ever. How did they end up driving it in a video?
According to the ever tiresome Eldritch the Sisters are not goth…..
Not being goth myself, I will defer to the Eldritch.
But in my defense, Wikipedia disagrees.
Fake!?! My first record purchase was the Monkees album, then inadvertently saw them twice, at different amusement park outings organized by my school. I was slightly embarrassed by my early purchase, till a friend told me he was a card carrying member of the KISS army.
Came here to say this.
The Monkees were a real band – although a manufactured one.
Mike Naismith wrote several hits
The producer got in a lot of trouble the first time they let him play one of his own songs. They were supposed to be performers only.
He was the kernel of truth.
Soooo…. The Blues Brothers was not a “fake band” in any way. They were very serious, and it’s been a long held belief that Belushi was more a blues man than an actor and it was his true passion and calling. Same with Dan Akroyd. Those guys were a force, but the band behind them had (have) deep roots in blues, like Donald “Duck” Dunn and Steve Cropper. To call them a fake band is a major disservice.
The others.. maybe. Even the Monkees were just as much a band as any other of that era, and more so I would say than the Motown groups being churned out of Detroit seemingly daily at the time.
Neat cars though .. I’ve never seen a blues mobile done right, it’s always the wrong year, probably because there are no Dodge Monaco’s left of that vintage.
The Monkees started as a fake band, became a real band, then essentially became a fake band again.
the Monkees was film producer Bob Rafelson “idea”. (work with Jack Nicholson a lot). I put that in quotes because my deceased ex-father-in-law, Paul Mazursky and his writing partner Larry Tucker came up with the name and wrote and are in the pilot (they also wrote “I love you alice b. toklas”). Bob’s pitch was “I want an American Beatles TV show”. I have a original script from the pilot somewhere…
Yes, I have a hard time labeling as fake a band that I’ve seen live, twice, and which has released several albums. Jake and Elwood may be fictional personas, but that’s hardly uncommon in the music biz.
As an aside, if anyone has a line on a reasonably solid ’74 Dodge Monaco that doesn’t cost an arm and a leg, please let me know…
You are such a trooper generating content while being poked, prodded, hacked and drugged. And you’re doing a great job because we can’t really tell the difference. 😉
> While I know David would like me to write about all the stuff we discussed on the podcast here, in lovely text-and-picture form, I’m still at the hospital and they’re connecting a whole new IV bag of magnesium sulfate,
Pretty sure David would like you to get better first!