It's not quite as splendid as the legendary William Shatner performance of "Rocket Man" at that award show, but Leonard Nimoy did himself proud with a recording of "The Ballad of Bilbo Baggins," which hauls Mr. Tolkien's characters into the world of 70's pop tunes. Here's a video of the song as Nimoy performed it on…
…on…uh, I don't know. This file has been ricocheting around the Internet for some time. It seems to be available on at least three dozen websites, yet no one seems to know what TV show it's from. The ladies dancing with him do not seem to be The Golddiggers, as some have guessed. They look more to me like the female members of the Doodletown Pipers…or perhaps it's from the ABC series, Music Scene. That show was on in '69, the same year Nimoy's record was first released. (My other thought was Johnny Mann's Stand Up and Cheer, but that was 1971-1973 and I don't recall it ever doing location shoots.) Does anyone know for sure?
[NOTE ADDED IN JULY, 2012: The original video link in this spot was to a clip with no identifying info attached. That link is defunct but here's a link to the same clip as posted years later on YouTube…]
