I don't care what anybody else says- DIO RULES!!! Ronnie James Dio has been making music since the 1950s, and shows no signs of slowing down. He is best known for his work with RAINBOW (the band of guitar virtuoso Ritchie Blackmore), BLACK SABBATH (The Godfathers of Heavy Metal), and his solo band DIO. Ronnie still has one of the best voices in heavy metal. There are several Dio sites on the web. Go back a page and check out all the pages on the Dio Magic Webring. Or if you're a newsgroup junkie like me, check out alt.music.dio.
Here is a picture of myself with the one and only Ronnie James Dio. It's not every day that you get to meet one of your idols. And I must tell you- I NEVER smile in pictures. But a jackhammer couldn't chisel that smile off my face from that night.
The first thing I must make clear to those who don't know me already: I LOVE THE MUSIC OF RONNIE JAMES DIO. These parodies were never meant to be a put-down for Ronnie. So how can I make fun of a guy that I really claim to idolize?
"Crawdad" Crawford Lee Seals, a frequent contributer to alt.music.dio and alt.music.black-sabbath, came up with what I believe is a perfect analogy. I will try my best to put this in my own words:
You can be the biggest Trekkie, but perhaps can't help but to giggle at William Shatner's acting as Captain Kirk. There's something about his acting that makes him funnier to you than the other actors in Star Trek. Sometimes he comes to these deep conclusions, but many times he acts so over-emotional over things, simply "bad acting" by many people's standards. Of course he's not always like that, but it sure as hell is noticeable. Maybe you and your other Trekkie friends will do Kirk impressions. It still doesn't lower your value as a fan!
I feel it is the same way with Ronnie James Dio. Ronnie is a very talented and warm person, but he's defined this character on stage known as Dio: this little guy, jumping from here to there on stage, wearing clothes from midevil times, flashing the little horn sign with the hands, moving his hands and posture as if performing Shakespeare, singing about spinning wheels, wizards, rainbows, and evil, fighting a dragon on stage, pointing his finger and saying "Look out!"....When you create a character that unique, it's very easy to impersonate and make fun of! And if anything, it makes me like his music even more.
Just like Leslie Nielson was hilarious doing slapstick after years of dead-serious roles, it cracks me up to picture somebody as serious as Dio singing these parodies! But it bears repeating: I still love the music of Ronnie James Dio.
So that's my whole take on finding humor in Dio in general. As for "why parodies?", I've been writing parodies here and there since grammar school. I was inspired by Weird Al Yankovic and especially Mad magazine. The reason for food parodies all comes from my first Dio parody "Rocky Road Children". I just kind of built it off from there.
But most of the humor comes simply from the food parodies themselves, not necesserily Dio. The subject of "food" is interesting. It's a vital necessity. It comes up in almost every conversation. We have so many different kinds of food, so many ways of preparing it. Why is a song about food immediately considered funny, stupid, or a children's learning song? After all, food can very well effect the emotions. For example, your spouse will react very differently when a candlelight dinner involves a Big Mac instead of a steak (and they're both forms of beef!) But could somebody ever write a serious song about, say, tomatoes? And have the public regard it as serious? I don't know why it's not like that, but I do know that food music makes for some great humor.
Jealous? Actually, I don't have tons of free time; I just spend my free time doing wacky things like this!
These parodies (and "album cover" drawings) were all created by me. If you copy them, share them, post some to a newsgroup, put some on another web page, etc., then I'm flattered. All I ask is that you 1) inform me and 2) give me the credit for writing them.
(Tapio, Genady, Ronnie, Me, and Big Jim at Old Bridge, New Jersey. Thanks to Genady for getting the pic developed & scanned!)
Thanks to Crawford, Tapio, Big Jim, Genady, TeRRy, KEN, Steev, Lisa, and everybody else at alt.music.dio for putting up with my bad humor! Thanks to the guy (damn! Sorry, I can't remember your name right now!) who originally offered to put the parodies on HIS web site. Thanks for the web sites who supplied me with the pictures. And especially thanks to Ronnie for making the original songs (and not finding out about the parodies and wanting to kill me). Appoligies to Starbucks, Richard Dean Anderson, Frito Lay, Friendly's, McDonald's, Spam (the actual food!), Budweiser, Starkist, Quaker Cereals, Wonder Bread, and of course to Ronnie.
Click here to go back to the Dio menu(Er..no pun intended)
Bill M. created and updates this webpage.
Click here to send me an email | Click here to go to my personal home page