The Mighty Spoiler, a serious comic in Calypso

2026-03-22 - 00:25

“No big torpedo, no big submarine, they didn’t even have a flying machine; always when dey going to the battle zone, see Napoleon pelting bottle and stone...” The only true genius of humorous calypso, Theophilous Phillip, the Mighty Spoiler. To place the genius in the contemporary period, the above is his comparison of “Wars of Long Ago” to those of the present. True to his capacity for reflecting on the past, projecting into the present and future, and turning imagination into hilarious reality and comic buffoonery, Spoiler contrasted leaders of today with those of the past, such as Napoleon, who led his troops into the battlefield. Spoiler won three Calypso King titles—1948, 1953 and 1955. That settles his reputation in competitions, but his greatness did not derive from titles. His originality and treatment of subject matter, his ability to see humour in our lives, and to laugh loudly at our condition; those were his greatest gifts. Spoiler’s out-of-head stories depict our reality projected from our past; our corrupt disposition treated with originality and laced with humour, which could have been deceptive and meaningless, if you did not think deeply about what he was saying about the nature of society. He envisaged the coming age of deep political corruption and bribe-taking when he related a funny, but self-serving story in the judicial system. The lone magistrate in a district having to try himself on a speeding charge: “Himself told himself you are charged for speeding; himself told himself the policeman lying; himself told himself doh shout,” and imposed on himself a “twenty dollar fine” and pleaded with himself “to geh me ah lil time to pay,” and himself promptly gave himself “five years to pay.” To his delight, Spoiler celebrated women in the police force in 1955: “Ah, doing everything for the woman police to hold me tight, tight, tight.” He also had great fun with a wife playing games on her husband by placing her brain in a cat: “In the night de trouble start, she (wife) up and down ransacking the house looking for a mouse, and de cat wey have she brain cosy on the bed bussing kiss on she husband head.” As a 9-year old, I got into big trouble responding to my primary school teacher’s question: “What would you like to be in a future life? In my response I opted for Spoiler’s “a bed bug”. It goes like this: “Ah wanna bite dem young ladies pardna, like ah hotdog or hamburger; but if yuh thin doh be in ah fright, is only big fat women ah going to bite.” I swear I did not know what was Spoiler’s real meaning; nor did I make a connection between the slim size of my teacher and Spoiler’s preference. My innocence did not stop me from getting a proper “cutarse”. Of course, my witty school friends thereafter named me after my desire. One of his most hilarious calypsoes, one in which he gained long-lasting life by bathing in a fountain of youth. He imagined having a date with a woman 103 years old: “when yuh hear de shout, she face turn like ah salt prunes in front of you, yuh want to dead when yuh look at what yuh was kissing ... and yuh trembling like ah leaf, can’t get away from the young old beast, she bawling kiss meh doh be afraid is forget ah forget to renew meh bathe.” But there was another side to Spoiler in which he was the victim. His girlfriend called him “de wus footballer in town,” in a game in front the Grandstand when in fact it was his twin brother on the field. Instead of a gift on Christmas Day, “is ah police with a face like Jack Palance, with ah warrant for me for child maintenance.” “Ah meet ah man in meh own house kissing meh wife ... we only fooling yuh Spoiler is All Fools day,” was the justification used by his wife. “Spoils” also found himself a victim of the capitalist system: “Ah have meh money in de bank since de age of nine ... ah have to wait just ah couple years again, because them big shots put theirs on mine, and in order to get out mine, they have to take out theirs.” “Spoiler brought the entire spirit of the street corner lime of old talk, the emphasis on fantasy, which is a part of the whole social milieu. It all helped to create a sense of the bizarre or a sense of the absurd,” Prof Gordon Rohlehr. Bomber called him “a genius in calypso”. And David Rudder was proud to tell the world that “I am the seed of the Spoiler.” Little is known about this greatest serious comedian in calypso. Melody said he accompanied Spoiler to his parents’ home in Princes Town, only to witness his father revile him for singing calypso. He died early in life on Boxing Day 1960 at age 34, the cause of death attributable to alcohol-related illness. May the spirit of Spoiler have a great day. Tony Rakhal-Fraser – freelance journalist, former reporter/current affairs programme host and News Director at TTT, programme producer/current affairs director at Radio Trinidad, correspondent for the BBC Caribbean Service and the Associated Press, graduate of UWI, CARIMAC, Mona and St Augustine – Institute of International Relations.