It's really a terrible song, but Byrnes was a huge sensation on TV during the time it came out (in fact, that's the only reason it came out) and that helped fuel the sales. You almost never hear it today, and that's because, unlike other oldies, it really isn't very good. But back then, when you had weekly exposure on a major hit show, you exploited it for a quick buck. (Proving nothing much has changed!)

It's the same reason Shelley Fabares had "Johnny Angel," Paul Petersen hit the charts with "My Dad" & "She Can't Find Her Keys." Both openly admitted they couldn't sing, but producers used their sudden popularity on The Donna Reed Show to rush them into a studio and turn out an album.

Another young star who made records but couldn't really sing was Patty Duke, who hit with "Say Something Funny To Me" and "Don't Just Stand There." Again, she would later reflect that she really wasn't a singer and was pretty much forced to turn out a record just so they could cash in on her fame with her eponymous show. (Although to be fair, I always liked "Don't Just Stand There.")

They were the successful ones. Somewhere upstairs, I have an album Dwayne Hickman recorded for some reason. They even had him perform a few tunes on "Dobie Gillis" - but he never made the charts.  Not that they didn't try!

 

Connie Stevens certainly did have singing talent, and I was familiar with Sixteen Reasons by the time I heard Kookie. But I think that just made it even harder for me to understand the way that Kookie was done. At least with some other songs such as Johnny Angel, backup singers and other production techniques were used to put out something that was (at least for me) much more of a reasonable and listenable effort. Even if Byrnes didn't have any real singing ability, I would think that there would have been ways of still coming up with a better record especially considering that Stevens could sing.

Thanks for the additional info, Jim. Because I was born in 1960, I have no firsthand knowledge of the context of any of these records. I think that most of what I know has come from the postings of others on the former board, and I'm learning more from what both you and aflem have posted here.
However, I had also thought about mentioning Fabian, and his first hits were in 1959 as well. Of course he's admitted that he also didn't have much singing ability, but in his case production techniques were used to make his records sound better. And this brings to mind what happened when my parents gave me an album of songs from the era that included Turn Me Loose. To my surprise, my father -- who wasn't into rock music at all -- really liked the song, and I didn't get the impression that he knew about Fabian's lack of singing ability. I was aware of this and figured that this was why I wasn't familiar with the song, but I also liked it and was impressed at it being a reasonable-sounding effort. I felt that this had at least partly been achieved by having Fabian do the vocals in a way that was more talking than singing, but it still ended up sounging more like a song than was the case with Kookie. But this makes me wonder if such techniques had really been used prior to Fabian. The other example that I can think of from that era that was by someone who really wasn't a singer is Young Love by Tab Hunter, but I don't know if anything was done to enhance his voice in that case. I think they might have just done the best that they could in terms of background vocals and instrumentation, plus of course using his star actor status to help promote the record. 

Jim Southern wrote:

Their hits did not tie in directly with "The Donna Reed Show"

Actually, Petersen did perform the song in the show, as the video below illustrates. So did Shelley Fabares on her lone hit. The producers would have been crazy not to promote their stars and their songs, striking while the iron was hot. 

I'm less sure about whether Patty Duke ever performed any of her tunes on her show but it wouldn't surprise me if she did.