User:Booboocharioca

Boo Boo Charioca is an imaginery person within the band from St Albans, Hertfordshire, Boo Boo Charioca and the Thunderstars, no single member of this band claiming to be such.

The name Boo Boo Charioca and the Thunderstars came about as follows. Colin Moore, a sales manager with an electonics company in Welwyn Garden City, Hertfordshire, U.K., had a company car which had no radio. His job meant driving often on long trips. Without a radio to listen to music, a passion with Colin, he started to make up songs as he drove. An idea would start each song off. Sometimes a song would come by giving a well-known song new lyrics, sometimes a joke would be turned into a song, another song was inspired by a sign on a farm gate in Devon. All of the songs were humourous, in fact, Colin would not be satisfied until each song made him burst out laughing. His test was that he couldn't expect it to be funny enough to others unless he himself thought it was very funny and,he assessed, couldn't fail to make others laugh heartily.

In a few months there was a collection of funny songs, known only to Colin, his wife and her sister who lived with them and sung heartily by him whilst driving for the electronics company, interrupted by bouts of helpless laughter. As he got used to one song he needed to make another up to keep the in-car entertainment up to standard.

A friend of Colin, Chris Argue, was a member of The Beehive Folk Club in St Albans, Herts. at the time, being a follower of folk music. Chris managed, after several attempts at persuasion, to get Colin and his wife to come to The Beehive on folk night. It wasn't their thing but they clapped each song and went with the flow and in the end enjoyed the friendly atmosphere and started going there each week. A short time after this first visit to the club, when Colin was visiting Chris at his home, he happened to mention that he made up "silly songs" and sang a couple of them to Chris, who collapsed laughing. The front door was then heard closing as someone else was entering the house. Chris explained that this would be Steve James, who had come recently to lodge with him. Steve was the Chairman of the Beehive Folk Club committee. Chris asked Colin to perform the songs again for Steve to give him a laugh. Steve did laugh, and then said to Colin, immediately, "You're booked". Colin resisted this strongly, saying that there was no way he was going to perform such songs in a folk club - they were not folk songs. The two others argued that it didn't matter because they were songs for everyone and would be a good contrast in the atmosphere of the club. After much persuasion, Colin agreed but only on condition that they formed a band to perform them, he lacking the confidence to perform them in a club on his own. They agreed to do this and Colin immediately thought of another friend of his from university whom he had himself introduced to The Beehive, John O'Dwyer, himself an ex-member of a humourous band some years before. When a name for the band was sought, Colin pulled out an old list he had made whilst a student a few years before. The list was of deliberately ridiculous names for bands which appeared a fashionable thing to do at the time it was made, and on that list was the name, 'Boo Boo Charioca and the Thunderstars.' Colin picked this name because of its complete inappropriateness to folk clubs, thus adding to its conspicuousness. The name Boo Boo Charioca was a distantly-remembered character on television during Colin's early childhood, on the George Burns and Gracie Allen Show.

Boo Boo Charioca and the Thunderstars made their debut at The Beehive in 1978 and were an intant hit. They comprised Colin, Chris, Steve and John, and also Steve's girlfriend Cathy, who added a pretty face and a game spirit to the line-up. They performed total comedy, with bits of material from John's and Steve's past repetoires and some jointly-written material from Colin, John and Chris as well as Colin's original songs made up in the radio-less car. In time they became well-known in the St Albans area and would attract a larger audience following a prominent mention in a local newspaper.

The problem with performing comedy however is that your audience can stand perhaps only two or three exposures before wanting new material and, since the band was not professional the members had no wish to travel very far to perform, coupled with Colin moving away to Cheshire, so it petered out after only three or four years. The members are still friends however and the songs still get sung whenever they meet. New songs have been written too, enough for complete performances. Perhaps one day the public will be once again happily exposed to 'the Boo Boos' as they are still colloquially known.