I was shopping in Walmart on October 1st and couldn't believe my ears..."O Come All Ye Faithful" was wafting through the store! It was coming from the store's Christmas department, where the artificial trees already were set up and fully decorated.
I hadn't even bought my Halloween candy yet!
The way things are going, I have visions of people sunbathing at Hampton Beach in August while "Jingle Bells" is being piped through giant loudspeakers on the outdoor Seashell Stage.
Anyway, the serenade in Walmart made me think about a column my friend Bob Dachowski (professionally known as the popular radio personality, Bobby Dee) wrote not long ago about humorous Christmas songs. Not only did his column bring back many fond memories, it also contained a lot of interesting information about how and why some of those amusing old Christmas songs were written.
So this week, Bobby has graciously allowed me to share that column with you in the hopes of giving my readers a "cheerful" kick-off to the Christmas holiday season.
BOBBY DEE'S
MOMENTS IN ROCK ‘N’ ROLL HISTORY
CHRISTMAS
SONGS THAT MAKE US LAUGH
Usually I write about touching Christmas songs that warm the hearts of families and friends, but this year I thought I’d lighten things up a bit and write about the humorous side of Christmas music. I've selected just five of many of my all-time favorite novelty tunes that have remained Christmas staples for decades.
“All I Want For Christmas Is My Two Front Teeth"
This song was written back in 1944 in only half an hour by a second-grade teacher named Donald Y. Gardner after he asked his students what they wanted for Christmas. He noticed that most of them lisped when they answered him because they were missing one or more front teeth – and that was how the idea for the song came about.
It was recorded for RCA Victor Records in 1947 by Spike Jones and His City Slickers, and featured George Rock as the lead singer. Rock had the uncanny ability to sound just like a child when he sang, and actually was in his late 20s when he recorded the song. It reached number one in both 1948 and 1949.
“The Chipmunk Song (Christmas Don’t Be Late)"
Ross Bagdasarian, professionally known as David Seville, wrote this song in 1958 and recorded it with his Chipmunks – Simon, Theodore and Alvin – whose voices were created by experimenting with various tape speeds to make them sound high-pitched.
During the song, Seville constantly has to scold Alvin, who seems to be distracted, causing Seville to shout, “ALVIN!!" to get his attention. Alvin, however, is more interested in convincing Santa to bring him a hula-hoop for Christmas than he is in singing the song.
The record reached number one on the Billboard Hot 100s pop singles chart in 1958, and was the first Christmas song ever to do so on that particular chart. It continued to chart off and on for years afterwards, especially during the Christmas season.
“Jingle Bells" by The Singing Dogs
You’ve never really heard “Jingle Bells” until you've heard if performed by The Singing Dogs, whose only lyrics are “Woof, woof, woof,” because they actually are real dogs named Dolly, King, Caesar and Pearl, not humans imitating dogs like many people thought when they first heard the song.
It all began when a Danish recording engineer, Carl Weismann, tried to record the dulcet tones of birds singing in his native Denmark. But to his frustration, his recordings inevitably would end up with barking dogs nearby interrupting and ruining them. One day, an idea came to him that perhaps he could use the ruined tapes by splicing the dogs’ barks in different octaves together to actually create a tune.
His first attempt, to everyone’s amazement, came out sounding like a recognizable version of “Oh! Susanna.” In 1955, RCA released that song on a single, backed by a medley that also included the dogs’ version of “Jingle Bells.” The record sold over a million copies. Sixteen years later, RCA reissued "Jingle Bells” as a single and it hit number one a year after that. It has continued to receive heavy airplay during the holiday season ever since.
“I Want a
Hippopotamus For Christmas"
Little 10-year-old Gayla Peevey of Oklahoma recorded this song, written by John Rox, in 1953. It reached the top 30 by December of that year.
For a long time it was rumored that the song had been created specifically to raise money for the Oklahoma City Zoo so it could acquire a hippopotamus. But Peevey revealed many years later that the song was just a novelty song with no fundraising intent in mind.
However, a promoter who noticed how popular the song was, especially after seeing Peevey perform it on the Ed Sullivan Show in 1953, came up with the creative idea to start a campaign to collect money to purchase and present the young girl with a live hippo for Christmas. His campaign turned out to be a huge success, and he was able to actually give Peevey a young hippo at Christmastime. She donated the animal to the Oklahoma City Zoo (which was how the rumor began that the song had been written as a fundraiser for the zoo). The hippo lived close to 50 years, and Peevey was able to visit the animal whenever she wanted.
“Grandma Got Run Over By a Reindeer”
Poor Grandma. She goes to a family Christmas-Eve gathering, doesn’t take her medication and then drinks too much spiked eggnog. When the hour grows late, she leaves, venturing out into a raging snowstorm to walk home. The next morning, she is found trampled to death out in the road, with telltale reindeer hoof-marks on her back.
The song about Grandma’s demise was written by Randy Brooks, who was friends with a veterinarian named Elmo Shropshire, who also moonlighted as a country singer. In 1979, Elmo and his wife Patsy recorded the song on their own Elmo and Patsy label, and became regional celebrities in the San Francisco area after selling the record from the stage after their performances. Their record label had a sketch of a pig on it, so when they sold out of the initial records and were about to press another batch, they kept the sketch of the pig, but changed the name of their label to “Oink Records.”
The song became a seasonal hit on country stations, then eventually also found its way onto popular Top-40 stations. The duo made a video of the song in the mid 1980s, with Elmo playing the part of Grandma, and Patsy portraying Cousin Mel. The video, however, had a happier ending than the original song. It showed Grandma still alive, but dazed and confused, being returned to the house by two police officers. The video aired seasonally on MTV for close to 20 years.
Just about everyone seems to know the chorus:
“Grandma got run over by a reindeer, walking home from our house Christmas Eve. You can say there’s no such thing as Santa, but as for me and Grandpa, we believe."
# # #
Tune in to Bobby Dee’s Rock & Roll Caravan radio show on the award-winning WNHN 94.7 FM, Saturdays from 8-10 PM, and Sundays from 12-2 PM.
