The Adventures of Ali and His Gang vs. Mr. Tooth Decay
The Adventures of Ali and His Gang vs. Mr. Tooth Decay is a 1976 educational album by the American heavyweight boxer Muhammad Ali. The album was recorded to raise awareness of tooth decay among children. The album features several notable personalities including Howard Cosell, Frank Sinatra, and Ossie Davis. The album was recorded in the year of the United States Bicentennial, and makes several patriotic references to America's past including the Liberty Bell and Paul Revere. It was nominated for the Grammy Award for Best Recording for Children  at the 19th Annual Grammy Awards in 1977. Ali also made a short film on children's dental hygiene, in which Mr Tooth Decay was played by Chuck Wepner. Ali later boxed against Mr. Tooth Decay during Dental Hygiene for Children Day in Washington, D. C. in January 1980. The album was officially approved by the American Dental Association. Reception. Frank La Rosa, writing on the website "Frank's Vinyl Museum" said of the album that "I'd heard about this record years ago, and it sounded pretty good. I finally picked up a copy the other day, and – sweet  jesus – this thing is better than anything I could have hoped for. It could be the single best record I own...A sugar high is nothing compared to what I felt listening to this treasure. One track isn't enough. You want to listen to the whole thing straight through, like I did, and you want to do it twice to catch all the details. Then you want to play it in your car. Your walkman. Your bathroom – while brushing and flossing your teeth, of course. One thing is for sure, I'll never look at ice cream the same  way again." Nate Petrin, writing in "VICE" magazine, was critical of the performance of the children on the album, feeling that "Fans of abysmal kid voice acting—including lots of opposite-of-spontaneous shouting things in unison as a substitute for actual emoting—will sink right into this record like a luxurious champagne bath". Jason Heller, writing in "Rolling Stone" magazine, said of the music on the album that "At one point, the score sounds like a marching band whose horns have been replaced with glitching analog synths. Elsewhere, some misplaced, Shaft-style blaxploitation funk underlines the narration. At one  point, Mr. Tooth Decay's entrance is signaled by a dissonant track that sounds like "You're a Mean One, Mr. Grinch" as interpreted by avant-garde composer Edgard Varèse. The most successful song on the album is Ali's own theme, a brassy, fist-pumping anthem that vaguely parallels the theme from Rocky, also released in 1976". Plot. The album opens with "Ali's Historical Theme Song", a musical number featuring Ali, before the story (narrated by Howard Cosell) begins. The plot of the story involves Ali training for an upcoming fight against "Mr. Tooth Decay", who is accompanied  by sidekicks, Sugar Cuber and Willie Plaque. Ali then rescues a group of children from buying ice cream from a shopkeeper (played by Frank Sinatra), and takes the children to an organic farm where they learn the importance of drinking milk and eating fruit and vegetables from farmer Brother St. John (played by Ossie Davis). The album concludes with the fight between Ali and Mr. Tooth Decay. Partisan Squabbling. I came here wondering if Ali had fought the dental lobby. Did he promote fluoride supplements the whole time teeth are growing? By the time of this album (1976) there were  clinical trials from pediatricians like Tom Peebles (1974) and Fred Margolis (1975) showing that giving babies vitamins with fluoride from birth worked great, way better than anything promoted by the ADA. For example let's looks at Dr. Peebles' report: Cavities in kids with fluoride supplements from birth: 1.57 Cavities in kids with fluoride water from birth: 3.16 (good but twice as many as supplement group) Cavities in kids with no fluoride from birth: 7.93 (more than twice as many as the F water group and more than 5 times as many as the fluoride supplement group). “Cavities” = DFS  = decayed or filled surfaces in permanent teeth. Children 7 – 12 years old. The only teeth that got cavities were mainly the parts of the first permanent molars that went through their growth just before the fluoride started. Well, be prepared to be disappointed in our hero. Shucks. This album does not mention the pediatricians' vitamins. It was made with "special thanks to the ADA" at 35:05 as "to the dentist we make our way". It does mention fluoride a few times. At 20:44 we are to ask if our community has a "fluoride program", which can only mean fluoridated  water. (That does help, of course, preventing about 50% of cavities, but is not something a new parent can just make happen.) Ali does say "natural fluoride" but does not mention any good food sources (like seafoods, especially canned fish with bones, or nori seaweed, or like tea). At 29:28 we are told about regular checkups with a dentist, and that the dentist can apply fluoride to the teeth. Nothing in the whole album about getting fluoride as a nutrient during the time teeth are growing. But I still think Ali would have really fought for kids' teeth if he  had seen the option. No one but pediatricians were reading those clinical trials. It must have been hard to turn down the ADA script and paycheck, when it just went along with what most of us civilians believed to be true, that sugar was the culprit. The video is up on YouTube.