VIDEO SUNDAY - SAUSAGE LINKS.....?

How about some Sunday morning sausages?

Jimmy Dean wasn't the only country western singer to have his name attached to a brand of sausages.  In Toobworld, Charlie Strayhorn was a fast-rising C&W star whose sausages were supposed to have been made in Cripple Creek, Arkansas, and transported by union trucks.  However, they were made in Mexico by a Chinese noodle company and shipped by non-union trucks.

In 1979, Strayhorn had a big hit with "Heartaches Of A Fool".  As a thank you for rescuing his public image, he cut a personalized single of the song with a thank you on the label to Joe "Rocky" Rockford.

Whenever the song was heard during the episode, we didn't see or hear Charlie singing it.  Instead we heard Willie Nelson who actually wrote it.  

Three years after the episode aired, Nelson reached #39 with the song in December, 1981.  (It can be found on the album "Greatest Hits And Some That Will Be."

Willie Nelson achieved televersion immortality by playing himself as a murder suspect in an episode of 'Monk'.  (He also has a Tooniverse counterpart thanks to 'King Of The Hill'.)  So it could be that in Toobworld, Nelson only recorded a cover of Strayhorn's song.....

Here's Willie Nelson singing as Charlie Strayhorn in the opening sequence from 'The Rockford Files' - "Heartaches Of A Fool":

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BCnU!