When The First Family (the comedy album that imagined what the family life of the Kennedys of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue might be like) was first released in late 1962, it was an immediate sensation and almost inconceivably popular -- at the height of the record industry's glory days of the '80s, selling over seven-million copies of an album in six months would have been incredible, but in 1962, it was entirely unprecedented. With that level of success, it was all but inevitable that the creative team behind The First Family ... Read More
When The First Family (the comedy album that imagined what the family life of the Kennedys of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue might be like) was first released in late 1962, it was an immediate sensation and almost inconceivably popular -- at the height of the record industry's glory days of the '80s, selling over seven-million copies of an album in six months would have been incredible, but in 1962, it was entirely unprecedented. With that level of success, it was all but inevitable that the creative team behind The First Family would give the concept another try, and in the spring of 1963, The First Family, Vol. 2 arrived in stores. It's a law of show business that the sequel is practically never as good as the original, and that was certainly the case with Vol. 2; the same writing team and voice cast from the first album returned, but the strain of coming up with fresh material in a short amount of time stymied the gag men, and the material simply isn't as good. The program is padded with musical numbers that fall flat (especially the mirthless "First Family March"), frequent references to the first album's success seem like slightly desperate prodding by the end of side two, and the closing interview with children about politics may have been a good idea, but the execution is clumsy. First Family producer Bob Booker had to threaten Vaughn Meader with a lawsuit in order to get him to repeat his performance as John F. Kennedy, and while Meader's technique is just as strong as before, his heart doesn't seem to be in this performance. All these years later, the one sketch on the album that's truly affecting is "1996," in which John and Jacqueline Kennedy, happily retired, look back on their lives and ponder the success of their family, positing a destiny far kinder than what fate had in store for them. The liner notes to Vol. 2 include the message "Adapted from real life for the LAST time," and it's clear the creative team behind The First Family knew this franchise wouldn't last. While the original album would become a common sight at thrift stores and garage sales for years to come after it went out of print following Kennedy's assassination, Vol. 2 seemed to almost completely disappear, and a quick listen confirms why -- it's just not very funny, and probably never was. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi Read Less
