Easily one of my all-time favorite CDs.

Back in the late ’90s when my son Alex was little, the two of us spent countless hours listening to and memorizing the 30+ tracks on the “Space Ghost’s Musical Bar-B-Que: Featuring 25 Hickory-Smoked Harmonies” CD.

The songs – performed by the zany cast of characters from “Cartoon Planet” including Space Ghost, Brak and Zorak – provided us melodies, laughter and catch-phrases that we still use today.

How could one not love a CD that contained tracks with names like “Smells Like Cartoon Planet”, “Minkey Boodle”, and “Put Your Sox on Mama”? There were also spoken bits that reminisced about the speech patterns of gym teachers as well as an explanation as to why you should never hire a monkey to take notes for you in class.

Other classics include “I Love Beans” which goes on to list various types of beans as well as giving us nutritional value, “What Day Is It” in which Brak ponders aloud the day of the week while Zorak grows increasingly frustrated, and a song that doesn’t end called, well, “The Song Doesn’t End”. Pure genius.

The undisputed favorite on the entire CD, however, was a short little track featuring Space Ghost beat boxing while Brak simply sang about not wanting to be touched called “Don’t Touch Me!” I played it for a co-worker back when the CD was new and he spent the remainder of the day in a fit of laughter. These songs just grab you, believe me.

As the years passed and Gwen entered our microcosm of craziness, Alex and I had a lot of fun introducing the songs to her. Naturally she loved them and began singing them almost immediately. There’s just something comically magical about these short little ditties that get stuck in your head. I could listen to them over and over and never once get tired of a single tune.

If you’ve never heard any of the songs on this CD you are definitely missing out.

I’ll leave you with this gem from The Musical Bar-Be-Q, Brak’s “Don’t Touch Me!”

Now that’s music.