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Here is the latest in a series of examinations into urban legends about TV and whether they are true or false. Click here to view an archive of the TV urban legends featured so far.

TV URBAN LEGEND: When she was a little girl, Crystal Bernard was part of an Evangelical Christian singing act with her older sister.

Crystal Bernard has had an impressively long career in television.

After one season on Happy Days, she co-starred in TWO long-running sitcoms, keeping her on the TV screen for over a decade, with the waitress sitcom It’s a Living and her most famous series, Wings.

However, Bernard has been in the entertainment business for years before she got into television.

Bernard’s father Jerry was a traveling Baptist evangelist preacher, who would sing and perform all over Texas.

So Crystal and her older sister, Robin, grew up singing.

In the early 1970s, the sisters were “discovered” by singer Bobbie Gentry (who will forever be known for her classic song, “Ode to Billy Joe”)…

Gentry had the girls perform with her during her popular Las Vegas routines.

Well, in 1972, Jerry Falwell released an album called Feudin’, Fussin’ & Frettin’, it was a recording of a “typical” Sunday at Falwell’s church.

The Bernard sisters performed two songs for the album, and as far as I know, they are the only two official recordings of the Bernard sisters that exists.

The song were “The Monkey Song” and “The Ecumenical Movement.”

The first song mocks the theory of evolution while the second song mocks the ecumenical movement (the “movement” that suggested that religions should try to stress the things that all religions have in common rather than their differences).

I bet you folks would like to see the lyrics, wouldn’t you? Read on to see ’em!

THE MONKEY SONG

I’m no kin to the monkey, no no no
And the monkey’s no kin to me, yeah yeah yeah
I don’t know much about his ancestors
But mine didn’t swing from a tree.

Although it’s so ridiculous
They’re teaching us now that it’s true.
The teachers that came from a monkey
Would be better off in a zoo.

Well…(Repeat chorus)

It seems so much more believable
And surely, surely it’s true
That God made man in his image.
No monkey story will do.

Well…(Repeat chorus)

This monkey business has got to go
Because it just isn’t true.
It’s such a disgrace to the monkey
A disgrace to the human race, too.

Well…(Repeate chorus)

THE ECUMENICAL MOVEMENT

We hear a lot of talk about
The Ecumenincal Movement.
They say we should all get together
And be one big happy family.

Catholic, Protestent and Jew,
Buddhist, Muslim and Hindu
I guess they want the Devil, too,
In the Ecumenical Movement.

They always talk about the Golden Rule
And the Sermon on the Mount
But whether you’ve ever been born again
Doesn’t even seem to count.
I know my sins are all forgiven
And I am on my way to heaven
My trust is in the Lord and not
The Ecumenical Movement.

‘Tis modern now to talk about
The Ecumenical Movement
The old ways are not good enough
They all must now be forgotten.

Virgins birthed the Trinity
The blood of Christ on Calgary
They’ve made a better way, you see, through
The Ecumenical Movement.

(Repeat Chorus “They always talk…”)

These folks they always talk about
The Ecumenical Movement
That we all travel different roads
But they all lead to Heaven.

But God’s words plainly say
That Jesus is the only way
So put your trust in him today, not
The Ecumenical Movement.

Well now…that was certainly something, wasn’t it?

Bernard (who is now 52) still occasionally sings with her father, although I imagine that she sings more traditional Gospel songs than stuff like the above.

The legend is…

STATUS: True

Thanks to Retro Low-Fi for the picture of the Falwell album!

Feel free (heck, I implore you!) to write in with your suggestions for future installments! My e-mail address is bcronin@legendsrevealed.com.