Retro Spins: Green Jellö (AKA Green Jellÿ) - Cereal Killer Soundtrack

If "Weird Al" Yankovic was a metal artist, you'd probably get Green Jellö, or Green Jellÿ as they were forced to change their name to after being sued by Kraft Foods. The songs are loud, but silly. Some are a little harsher in tone, language and content wise, than others, but all intended in good jest.

As a band, Green Jellö featured a slew of talent which included the likes of Maynard Keenan and Danny Carey of Tool, Leslie Claypool of Primus, and comedian Pauly Shore...Along with twelve other contributing members.

As an entity, Green Jellö are no strangers to the world of legality. I've already mentioned they were sued by Kraft Foods for the infringement on the name Jellö. However, this lawsuite came to be more so for the band's slogan, "Green Jellö sucks," more so than the band's actual name. This lawsuit was followed up by another from Kellogg Company for their trademark infringement of the character Toucan Sam. Finally, a third litigation was filed against them by the managers of Metallica for the use of the guitar riff from Enter Sandman in their song Electric Harley House (of Love).

All of these suits resulted in a degree of changes which had to be made to their albums and the band in general. The most notable being the change of the name from Green Jellö to Green Jellÿ. What's interesting about this is that even under the name Green Jellÿ, and the name of the song changed to Green Jellÿ Sucks, they band weren't forced to change the lyrics, and still sing, "Green Jellö sucks." Metallica's lawsuit wasn't as friendly, and the band was forced to remove their music from the album, video library. Kellogg's made the band add a disclaimer to their front cover of the album separating the band from the food brand.

Despite this, Green Jellÿ was successful enough to release a follow up album in 1994, and then in 2009 released an additional album. However, overall, they remain a rather obscure one hit wonder from the 1990's.

Listening to Green Jellö's Cereal Killer Soundtrack definitely brings back memories for me. I remember my first introduction to the band was their claymation style music video for pretty much their only commercially successful track, Three Little Pigs. It intrigued me enough to want the album, and introduced me to a slew of other fun songs to listen to. The charm to it all was the humor mixed with heavy metal aspects.

Admittedly, while listening to it for this post, it took me a little bit to get into the album. It wasn't until Rock-N-Roll Pumpkin that I remembered just how much I enjoyed Cereal Killer Soundtrack. It wasn't for the goofy lyrics, though some are still childishly funny, but rather for the killer guitar work. This rings all the more true in the aforementioned Pumpkin song which shreds.

I actually really enjoyed listening to this CD. It's been a long time since I've blared it through speakers, and it was really fun to remind myself of why I bought it all those years ago. It's definitely not an every day kind of album, and I certainly wouldn't head down the highway with the windows open and it cranking. But, it was great to hear again.

If it's an album you're considering grabbing, then I encourage you to find the original Green Jellö labeled release. It's definitely more scarce than the re-release, but it's not too costly. Five to ten bucks on a good day.

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