For the Second Time in 10 Months, Frank Reynolds’ Anti-Diddling Song from ‘It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia’ Is Amazingly Relevant
Lately, it’s seemed like everyone is trying to rewrite Frank Reynolds’ classic single “It’s No Good Diddling Kids,” but no one is trying to learn from it.
If you were to poll 100 average Americans on the question of, “What’s the best way for a celebrity to deny public allegations of grooming and pedophilia?” Family Feud style, the only way you’d get a single response of “in a song” is if Charlie Kelly was a part of the sample size. That’s exactly why, in the iconic It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia episode “Frank Reynolds’ Little Beauties,” Frank’s insistence that the gang needs to write and perform a song about how molesting children is wrong to add to their child beauty pageant is one of the all-time funniest jokes on the show.
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As Mac so eloquently explained to Frank, “There is no quicker way for people to think that you are diddling kids than for you to write a song about it!” But when the popular hip-hop/pop singer Drake posted his rebuttal to Kendrick Lamar’s claims that Drake has less regard for the age of consent than he does for courtside decorum in the NBA Finals, the internet theorized that Drake brought in a special new ghostwriter for “THE HEART PART 6.”
In the rap beef that’s taken over American media during the last few weeks, Drake and Kendrick have been exchanging diss tracks of escalating severity as they air each other’s dirty laundry to millions and millions of listens. Inevitably, the more Drake picked at Lamar’s personal life, the more likely it was that Lamr would bring up the widespread rumors that Drake’s own private life was filled with young women who were underaged when Drizzy first slid into their DMs.
In his song “Meet the Grahams,” Lamar explicitly called Drake a predator, advising Drake’s famous friends to “keep the family away” from the multi-platinum mega star and saying that “him and Weinstein should get fucked up in a cell for the rest they life.”
To be fair to Drake, there really aren’t too many options for an artist stuck in the most high-profile rap beef since Biggie v. Tupac to reject his opponent’s assertions about his sex life other than in a verse, which is exactly what Drake did in “THE HEART PART 6.” In the single, Drake rapped, “Only fuckin’ with Whitneys, not Millie Bobby Browns, I’d never look twice at no teenager,” referencing his very weird relationship with the Stranger Things star stretching back to her early teens.
As is the case when any new artist records a cover of a classic song, Drake’s new take on “It’s No Good Diddling Kids” must be held up against the other attempts to recapture Frank Reynolds’ musical magic. So here is Colleen Ballinger’s musical non-apology “The Toxic Gossip Train,” which she recorded following her own scandal regarding numerous allegations of grooming behavior:
Personally, I feel like the only one of these three equally talented singers who really captured the spirit of not diddling kids in song is the OG Frank Reynolds, and each successive reimagining of “It’s No Good Diddling Kids” further diminishes the message of the music. Plus, neither Drake nor Ballinger came up with a better melody than Frank’s little diddy.
If Drake decides to record another anti-diddling anthem, he should know that he’s not going to find the inspiration for a hit in A-minor.
