You Wild Thing, You

Like it or not, Senator Robert Kennedy has a reputation he can't shake for hanging tough, cool and humorless. The combination might be surefire at the ballot box, but at the box office--sure chill. Or so it seemed until a few weeks ago, when out came Wild Thing, a new 45-r.p.m. recording of a big-beat tune. The vocalist is a dead ringer for Bobby and he purportedly is at a recording session.

"Stand by," the control room orders. "This is Wild Thing, Take 72, Senator." The music begins. "Bobby" comes on in the heavy-breathing opening stanzas with all the lustiness of a dried cod:

Wild thing, you make my heart sing. You make everything groovy. Wild thing.

"That's perfect, Senator," says the producer. "Lay it on them." "All right," the Senator tells his sidemen, "Teddy, on the ocarina, let's go . . . Eunice, a little more tempo there." Then Bobby is cued for the big sock finish. "Come on and hold me tight," he begins laconically, but from the control room a voice interrupts: "A little more Boston soul, Senator." Later, when he waxes too hot ("O come on, wild thing"), the producer cautions: "Not so ruthless, Senator."

The fellow who does this happy bit of humanizing for Bobby is Bill Minkin, 25, a Brooklyn College television instructor. Neither he nor his three collaborators plan to quit their jobs to go into full-time comedy cutting; but they have a little cushion to sit on. In three weeks, the record has sold 450,000 copies and become one of the hottest singles of the new year.

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