Today, sampling is a common practice governed by a myriad of legalities and limited by only your imagination and the technology at our disposal. But back in the 1950s, there were no laws regarding sampling, and the technology was primitive. This did not stop two comedic songwriters, Bill Buchanan and Dickie Goodman, who created a mashup of spoken word and clips from songs of the day.
The skit—which is really what it was—was called “The Flying Saucers” and featured 18 song clips spliced in between cheesy and cringey setups. No one had ever done anything like this before, which meant that copyright laws weren’t equipped to deal with this new practice.
Music publishers tried to sue them, but all the cases were thrown out of court because it was ruled that “Flying Saucer” constituted a brand new recording. Buckman and Goodman went on to record a string of these records, all of which are, frankly, terrible, but they are important historically.
Ad Choices
