By 1955 Philadelphia-based Teen Records co-founder Bernie Lowe suspected that "Hound Dog" could potentially have greater appeal, but knew it had to be sanitized for mainstream acceptance, and so asked popular Las Vegas lounge act Freddie Bell of Freddie Bell and the Bellboys, who had been performing songs with "tongue-in-cheek" humour as the band in residence at The Silver Queen Bar and Cocktail Lounge at The Sands Hotel and Casino soon after its opening in December 1952, to rewrite the lyrics for their first release on his label. "They replaced the racy with the ridiculous, turned a declaration of no more sex ('You can wag your tail but I ain't gonna feed you no more') into a reprimand for poor hunting skills ('Well, you ain't never caught a rabbit and you ain't no friend of mine')". Additionally, they replaced "Snoopin' 'round my door" with "cryin' all the time". The song was now literally about a dog. Jerry Leiber, the original lyricist, found these changes irritating, saying that the rewritten words made "no sense". Described as "one of their trademark spoofs, a send-up of Big Mama Thornton's 'Hound Dog' complete with vulgar beat and mock drum fusillades", their new "slightly 'big band' style of rock 'n' roll'" became a staple of their act: "Now street legal, the song was given a rock and roll rhythm and put on the Bell Boys' playlist." As performed by Bell and the Bellboys in their Las Vegas act, "Hound Dog" was a comedy-burlesque song with "show-stopping va-va-voom choreography."