page_title: Frankie Avalon
section_title: Legacy
hierarchical_section_title: Frankie Avalon / Legacy
caption_attribution_description: Photo of singer Frankie Avalon performing.
context_page_description: Frankie Avalon is an American actor, singer, and former teen idol. Avalon had 31 charted U.S. Billboard singles from 1958 to late 1962, including the number one hits "Venus" and "Why" in 1959.
context_section_description: Avalon was mentioned in the System of a Down song "Old School Hollywood". The song supposedly is about Daron Malakian's experience in a celebrity baseball game, where he and Avalon were both ignored.
  Avalon is also mentioned in "It Takes Two", a song from the hit musical Hairspray, sung by the character Link Larkin, and in a song by the Wu-Tang Clan called "The City" which refers to his experiences of being a big part of the beach party film genre ("Ride the wave like Frankie Avalon").
  One of numerous obscure cultural references present in Midway's video game Mortal Kombat 3 was a lo-res image of Frankie Avalon's face that would dart up in the lower right-hand corner of the screen when Goro killed his opponent by knocking him into the spike pit on the Bridge level.
  His song "Venus" was featured in Cranium Command (1989–2005), an attraction at Epcot's Wonders of Life Pavilion (now closed) at Walt Disney World. In the attraction, a 12-year-old boy named Bobby (Scott Curtis), tries to survive the pressures of life and falls in love with a beautiful girl named Annie (Natalie Gregory) at school.
  Avalon and his song "Venus" are mentioned in Wendy Wasserstein's 2005 play Third. The main character, English professor Laurie Jameson, watches a PBS reunion show featuring Avalon singing the song, and sings a line of it to her daughter. In stage productions of the show, part of the song is played and a portion of the supposed PBS special is screened as part of the scenery.
  Avalon is also referenced in the 1994 film, The Stöned Age, in which he makes an ending scene cameo appearance.
  His song "Venus" additionally appeared in season 4 of the TV series Dexter in which John Lithgow's character, Arthur Mitchell, plays it to remember his deceased sister. Also, "Venus" is sampled in Nick Bertke's, single, "J'Adore Juin", a mashup of sounds from the movie The Apartment.
  "Venus" also appeared in the 2016 film 10 Cloverfield Lane starring John Goodman.
  Avalon is also mentioned in The Vaccines' song "Teenage Icon".
caption: Avalon performing in 1960
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