What Killed Benny

Megan Abbott sent me this video ("click" here) of Joey Heatherton performing a song including the lines "Look what they've done to my brain/ Picked it like a chicken bone" (!). Naturally, I dispatched it to Phil Oppenheim for analysis right away. Noting that it apparently comes from a Jack Benny TV special, Phil asked, possibly rhetorically, "Is that what killed Benny?" I also came across a video of Raquel Welch singing "Bang Bang," adorned with the usual youtube comments seething with barely concealed nostalgia-fueled rage. "Is there anything more inspiring for a man than a woman?" one commenter wistfully asks. FULL DISCLOSURE: I vaguely recall that when I was a kid I had a copy of this song (not the Joey Heatherton version!), maybe on the B side of a 45. But I have no recollection of the part about somebody picking somebody's brain like a chicken bone.