Les Charlots

Les Charlots, known as The Crazy Boys in the English-speaking world, was a group of French musicians, singers, comedians and film actors, who were popular in the 1960s, 1970s, and early 1980s.

The group was active first from 1965 to 1966 as Les Problèmes, under which name they made an album with the French pop singer Antoine. They renamed themselves Les Charlots, starting as a comedy music band and evolving into actors; they remained active from 1966 to 1997, then again briefly from 2008 to 2011 (as a duo). Charlots is slang for clowns or doofuses, and derives from Charlie Chaplin, whose character of The Tramp was called Charlot (a diminutive for Charles) in France.

Their light-hearted comedy style was influenced by the style of popular Italian group I Brutos and by the anarchic humor of the Marx Brothers.

The original five members were Gérard Rinaldi (vocals, saxophone, accordion), Jean Sarrus (bass, backing vocals), Gérard Filippelli, a.k.a. “Phil” (guitar, backing vocals), Luis Rego (rhythm guitar, piano, backing vocals) and Jean-Guy Fechner (drums, backing vocals). Filippelli was nicknamed “Phil” as there were two “Gérards” in the group. The group was later reduced to four members, then to three, following Rego's and Fechner's departures; following Rinaldi's departure in the mid-1980s, he was replaced by Richard Bonnot in the group's later years.