ABSTRACT
After a court settlement made it illegal for Mark Volman and Howard Kaylan to perform either as the Turtles, who had recently disbanded, or under their own birth names, they reinvented themselves as Flo & Eddie. After a discussion of their career with the Turtles, with emphasis on Battle of the Bands, and their role in Frank Zappa’s Mothers of Invention, this chapter will focus on the comedy of Flo & Eddie as a duo, explicating their on-stage and on-record comic techniques. While considering their use of parody, slapstick, sing-alongs, wordplay, caricature, and inane songs and posturings and noting their playful and not so playful spoofs on overly earnest rock musicians, including the Who and T. Rex, this chapter will also offer reasons for the limited commercial success of Flo & Eddie, who never developed more than a cult following.
