King Tut

In 1978, the King Tutankhamun exhibition was touring American museums, and the country was gripped by Egypt fever. Martin responded by writing "King Tut," a novelty song performed with the Toot Uncommons that somehow reached #17 on the Billboard Hot 100.

The song is deliberately, joyously stupid. Martin sings about King Tut with the reverence of a pharaoh's subject and the musical ability of a man in a joke Egyptian costume. "Born in Arizona, moved to Babylonia—King Tut." The geography is wrong. The history is wrong. Everything is wrong. It's perfect.

Performed on SNL in full Egyptian regalia, the bit captures Martin at the peak of his arena-comedy era: so famous he could release a novelty song and have it outsell actual musicians. The absurdity of a comedian having a hit single was itself part of the joke.

"King Tut" also functions as stealth cultural criticism—skewering America's tendency to turn other civilizations into theme park exhibits. But mostly it's a really catchy song about a dead king performed by a man in a fake beard.