SINCE THEN, Dee Dee has filled every female role required by the comedy sketches, a list of infamous women that includes Tammy Baker, Catwoman, Wade Boggs' girl friend whose name we can't now recall, Marcia Clark from the O.J. trial, Shelley Fabares, Lulu, and most consistently and effectively, Connie Francis. Dee Dee does "Where the Boys Are" like there is no tomorrow, no yesterday -- a timeless ode to Spring Break. And we are bringing it back again this season.

The years have mounted with alarming speed, but the comedy material remains fresh from TV land, as our writers are 30 plus year veteran T.V. sitcom producers - Gary Murphy is currently an Executive Producer on The Exes, a role he also held on Malcolm in the Middle, and Night Court, and before that a longtime writer for Johnny Carson. Our piano player/stage director, Larry Strawther, left the Glass Packs for Laverne & Shirley and Happy Days 25 years ago, partnered with Gary to exec produce Night Court for five seasons, and later created and produced the show Most Extreme Elimination Challenge (MXC) -- think the ABC show Wipeout before they borrowed it without Japanese people. Larry and Gary know what's funny, where to stand, where to edit, and so on, and the rest of us defer to their judgment. Add to that comedian- actor, personal friend and former sidekick of David Letterman, Bob Sarlatte, and you've got a pretty well qualified comedy tag team.

Perhaps the most versatile guy in the group is a girl and her name isn't Dee Dee. It's Jeannine -- Jeannine O'Neal . Jeannine won the Bend, Oregon Patty Duke Look alike Contest in 1978, but is really more like the quiet studious Cathy Duke, until she opens her mouth to sing. She joined us in 1988; a mere baby that arrived only 13 years ago. Jeannine is the most qualified utility girl there is; her main instruments are tenor and bari sax, guitar, bass and drums and she sings like an alley cat. While she is a professional studio musician and arranger, she only sings one song with the Glass Packs and its not a Sunshine and Lolliop Lesley Gore tune, it's a mean, friggin' Bob Seeger song - "Betty Lou". She does dirty old man's work with a smile.

Meanwhile, the supporting cast of veteran hambones are fearless, hungry lab rats, willing to go anywhere in any disguise for the cheese and each remains responsible for that portion of the show that he or she is dedicated to carry. Eighteen year later, thirty years all together, Butch Whacks & the Glass Packs continues as a live act that is dangerously close to improv in light of the time constraints imposed by our day jobs, the distance still separates us and the amount of new material that is added each year (usually a third of the two hour show is new each year).

This year, for example, we are doing a sketch on Bob Dylan's motorcycle accident (perhaps you read about it) where the rootless troubadour wanders away from the hospital and is found touring with the Pharaohs in place of Sam the Sham - featuring the dead on Dylan singing style by drummer Mike Moore dressed as the Mr. Highway 61 Revisited himself singing and blowing the harp to a two minute medley of Lil' Red Riding hood/Wooly Bully - just long enough to make the joke before the sound of the song kills you.

Last year we reprised our County Show from the 70's act, this time featuring that Lonesome Cowpoke Conway Twit who reminds us that "Cowpoke" is just an expression (see video clip --- "Country Show" ) before kicking up dust into "Six Days on the Road". Conway is followed by a cotton candy coiffed Dee Dee Crocket as Tammy Whynot? , who brings the roof down with a mournful "Stand By your Man", and Bob Sarlatte as jailbird Hank Bunion (Johnny Cash on steroids) who is greeted by the slam of prison door after recalling he just got back from the Big House and can no longer own a puppet in the State of Tennessee.

Yeah, we're a laugh riot. Last year we did the Lettermen without pants. Don't ask us why this is funny. Our writers guaranteed it would be and it was. We sang the "Goin' Out of My Head/You're Just to Good to Be True" letterman perfect (Mike Moore, Jeannine O'Neal and Butch) as the real Lettermen, while the three slick -haired, sweater clad men without pants at center stage pantomime our singing - complete with canned applause loaded into our keyboard player's (Tom Thomasello) sound effect disc.

The middle third of the show consist of material that is 2-4 year old and the last third is what remains of the bearded chestnuts that chased into our present careers in 1976. That middle third consists this year of the "Glass Pack Time Machine" - an excuse to go anywhere we want in music history without the need for a current anniversary reference. This year we are going back to the Summer of Love only because when we did in 1997 it was of the funniest things we had ever done, and Dee Dee simply sing the fur off of "White Rabbit". Bob Sarlatte as the Woodstock emcee, "Too Much" Johnson, is worth the price of admission - He can't find his van, he can't find his clip board because his left arm is completely numb, he eats the Airplane out of house and home - as he walks on to "Warm San Francisco Nights," complete with mandolin "sway with me people".

Still kicking around is a very mangy "Three Dog Night" who stomp on to the stage to the musical accompaniment of "One (is the Loneliest Number)" and then do their best to bumble through "Joy To the World", but can't remember any of the words except "and she always had some mighty fine wine".

These ventures off the straight and narrow path of 50's and 60's music were made possible by the 1987 addition of Tom Thomassello, a 21-year veteran professional arranger, who takes the black and white versions of these songs and puts them properly in Technicolor. When we need strings, he's got them. Need an accordion? He's there with Lady of Spain. Pedal steel? Comin' right up, pardner. Did someone ask for sound effects? Tom has an entire library of joke effects that are integral to the Glass Packs show ranging from the "Ike Turner punch ("Tshht)", the James Brown "Yeow. Yeow. Yeow. Yeow" (Live from South Carolina a State prison), and snorting cattledrive steers to greet Conway Twit. Tom arranges the difficult songs, back up the Lucky Strike Singers (See video page), writes chord charts for the blind musicians to read, and directs this band of fools into previously uncharted waters, notwithstanding our lack of formal music training.