"It's Inevitable" by Charlie

1983 / #38

Rate Your Music score: 3.08 out of 5!

Who doesn't love physical comedy?

I came up with an idea for a TV show that would be just like Hee Haw except that people would spill stuff more. The hilarious thrills and spills would help satisfy the public's appetite for slapstick humor.

A time-honored staple of physical comedy is the classic pie-in-the-face gag. It is funny because it is. I'm sure that many suits and tablecloths have been ruined by this routine in movies and on TV.

And the British band Charlie came through!

The video for "It's Inevitable" is set in a bakery. It has one of those carts like that in a local bakery we frequented when I was about 4. The only thing inevitable about a video set in a bakery is that there will be a massive pie fight!

This pie-smashing brawl lays hulk to the bakery's entire inventory and prompts a visit by police. Even a harmless scale gets pied!

The sequence that begins at 3:15 is strikingly similar to an Electric Company segment that first aired several years earlier.

Charlie never got to enjoy their moment in the sun. "It's Inevitable" peaked at #38 for one week. The band never charted higher. During the week it was #38, American Top 40 - with Keri Tombazian filling in for Casey Kasem - mistakenly played "Pieces Of Ice" by Diana Ross, another lost hit, in that slot instead. This is sort of like when Shana received the Q-102 treatment, but at least Casey was able to correct the Charlie-related error the following week.

It wasn't inevitable that such mistakes were corrected. AT40 for the weekend of December 15, 1984, switched around "Hello Again" by the Cars and "You're The Inspiration" by Chicago. The Case did not correct this gnawing switcheroo. Also, my very first suspension from school began during the reign of that week's chart. That was in 6th grade when I was chased out of the school building by a gang of assailants. My "crime" was exiting the building. The punishment caused me to miss the field trip to Cincinnati Milacron. For decades after, every time my family drove past Cincinnati Milacron on Interstate 71, I retold that story.