Norden Laboratories - Vinyl 7” - 33 1/3 rpm - 1961
Tracklist
A – Does The Abominable Snowman Exist?*
B – The Facts About Felocine
Essentially a commercial for Norden Laboratories’ new “one-CC, one-dose tissue culture feline distemper vaccine,” starring Marlin Perkins of “Mutual of Omaha’s Wild Kingdom” fame. Why are we even discussing this? The vaccine was developed, so we’re told, by isolating the virus in a Himalayan snow leopard, which naturally leads into discussion of Perkins’ infamous trip to the Himalayas with Sir Edmund Hillary…to investigate the legend of the Abominable Snowman! Thus begins this highly interesting, but woefully short, segment of the record.
In a decidedly unenthusiastic manner, as if cataloging the spare parts for a washing machine, Perkins describes the Abominable Snowman as a huge hominid, manlike animal, or some type of undiscovered anthropoid ape or pre-human that lives in the high mountains. It’s a very dangerous and seldom seen creature, though it’s strange call and large footprints are occasionally encountered, Perkins tells us.
Just as he’s building up our fervor for the possibility of such a man-beast, Perkins brings us right back down with a hearty dose of skepticism: “I don’t think there is any anthropoid ape as yet undiscovered or any hominid living in those high Himalayan Mountains that people call the Abominable Snowman.”
That said, Perkins admits he could never figure out the source of the unusual noises the Himalayan people have been hearing, but suspects they may be the calls of a snow leopard seeking a mate. And as for those iconic tracks in the snow, Perkins posits those prints were made by fox, wolf, snow leopard, or humans, but became enlarged and distorted as they began to melt. So much for that.
The entire Yeti segment takes up only about 4 minutes on one side of the record. Side Two begins promisingly enough, with the cries of a cat as it receives an old style distemper vaccine, but quickly reveals itself to be an unapologetic and exceedingly dull infomercial for Norden Laboratories’ new Felocine vaccine.
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