Back in 1976 disco music was in full swing, which meant it was ripe for parody—which is exactly what up-and-coming disc jockey Rick Dees did. Dees released his humorously duckified disco track, “Disco Duck,” in September of 1976 and it shot all the way to #1 on both the Billboard Hot 100 and Cash Box Top 100.
“Disco Duck,” which Mr. Dees wrote, was a novelty song that made appropriate fun of that era’s disco music. Dees affected the voice of cartoon duck Yakky Doodle, who has an urge to get down on the dance floor in a duck-like manner. Audiences loved it.
At the time, Rick Dees (born Rigdon Osmond Dees III) was a DJ at Memphis radio station WMPS-AM. He went on to further success at radio stations in Los Angeles, first at KHJ-AM and later at KIIS-FM, which for a time was the highest revenue-generating station in the country. He created and still hosts the syndicated Weekly Top 40 program, which is still heard by more than 200 stations worldwide. He also hosted his own late-night television show, Into the Night with Rick Dees, on the ABC network in the 1990s, and has moonlighted as an actor on various television programs over the years. You can still hear the voice of Rick Dees on the radio today, at the ripe young age of 76.
My personal connection to “Disco Duck” came during my freshman year in college at the Indiana University School of Music. In one of my classes (either ear training or music theory, I can’t remember which), the hip young instructor gave us all the assignment of turning a currently popular song into a Latin mass. The song? You got it, it was Rick Dee’s masterpiece, which we rewrote as “Missa Disco Duck.” The assignment was both insulting and a lot of fun.
Oh, and just because, today’s daily bonus video of the day is Rick Dees and a duck puppet performing “Disco Duck” on The Midnight Special. Oh boy.
