"Evelyn Woodhead Speed Reading Course" is a parody skit of the numerous speed reading courses available in the United States in the 1960s and 1970s written by Cheech and Chong that first appeared on the 1973 album Los Cochinos. The title refers to the Evelyn Wood course.
Voiced by Tommy Chong, the piece begins with the words delivered phonetically:
| “ | Ever since I took the Evelyn Woodhead sped ridin course, my ridin has im-PRO-v'd won-der-FULL-y. I ricommend these Evelyn Woodhed Speed Riddin Course to all my frens out there and you tell 'em that you heard it here first... on Roller Derby | ” |
The short spoken word testimonial style skit was an effective parody of commercials that were prevalent on television and radio stations in that era.
Famous quotes containing the words speed and/or reading:
“Wait, Kate! You skate at such a rate
You leave behind your skating mate.
Your splendid speed won’t you abate?
He’s lagging far behind you, Kate.”
—David Daiches (b. 1912)
“We live in a highly industrialized society and every member of the Black nation must be as academically and technologically developed as possible. To wage a revolution, we need competent teachers, doctors, nurses, electronics experts, chemists, biologists, physicists, political scientists, and so on and so forth. Black women sitting at home reading bedtime stories to their children are just not going to make it.”
—Frances Beale, African American feminist and civil rights activist. The Black Woman, ch. 14 (1970)