a week for the U.S. government. He also played for servicemen at the USO canteen at Cleveland's St. John's Cathedral. Then, in 1945, he took his six-man comedy and band group (Mickey Katz and His Krazy Kittens) on a USO tour of Europe with movie star Betty Hutton. For this trip Katz was made a temporary officer; it was the closest he ever came to serving in the military. Hitting his stride In 1946, the national jukebox convention was to be held in Cleveland, and Katz was asked to conduct for it. While there he met Spike Jones, and a week later Jones asked Katz to join him in Hollywood. Katz played with Jones for more than a year, but never felt he was paid enough, so he left Jones in 1947. Katz soon decided to make an English-Yiddish comedy record. Having written the lyrics to "Haim afen Range" (based on "Home on the Range") some years previously, he had it approved by RCA. He quickly wrote another song for the flip side, "Yiddish Square Dance", and had his friend Al Sack sketch out the melody for it and set "Haim afen Range" to music as well. The original run of 10,000 copies released in New York City sold out in three days, and RCA received orders for 25,000 more. Katz then went on to parody "Tico, Tico" as "Tickle, Tickle" and backed this new record with "Chloya", a parody of "Chloe". He then hired a manager in Los Angeles, and in 1947 performed in Boyle Heights, a largely Jewish and Mexican-American neighborhood. In Katz's words, he was a "double-ethnic smash." Receiving some opposition Despite Katz's appeal with particular groups, there were many who did not like his music. Most of these people were affronted by the way he emphasized Jewish differences, convinced that his antics would help perpetuate Jewish stereotypes. In "The Yiddish are coming", writer Josh Kun sums up the atmosphere of the time with the following: "As historian Howard Sachar has noted, the prevailing attitude after World War II was a fear that anything that promoted a 'separate identity as Jews ... would somehow lend credence to Hitler's racial theories. Although Katz had his fans, not everybody loved him. There were many radio stations that refused to play his records, and several venues feared hiring him. In his biography, Katz recalls asking a radio station manager why