Category: Childrens

Even though elves are a Victorian notion mostly adorning advertising, they have been confused with chipmunks. Chorusing with helium afflicted voices, they chime in (with odd Manchester accents) with Bob Pryde for “Santa’s Little Helpers.” Frightening, man.

September happens now. Time to harvest, register, equinox, and get to work. We celebrate the hard working men and women of ‘Merica this month with a day off.

…So I had to wonder: does the North Pole get a day off? Rumors are it’s twelve twenty-six, but that may only be for The Big Guy. What about Santa’s Little Helpers?

We shall endeavor to use this month in holiday song to explore the pluck, the plight, and the playfulness of the elves. [I mean, it might have been dwarves, as recounted by the Les Tucker Singers and Gene Autry and others. But we covered this 5/6/16.]

We’ve been feed a log of bologna for decades, declaring that the special species that effects our gifts does so out of love and joy. Some cracks in this utopian facade appear as early as 1964 with the NBC broadcast of ‘Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer’ in which–during the song “We Are Santa’s Elves“–the laborers are mischievous, and easily distracted during their team-building exercise. Bunch of sixth-graders, basically.

Mostly we get propaganda as with Mother Goose Club for Songs’s “Here at Santa’s Workshop.” The culturally diverse crew (including a Mexican mouse minion) fantasizes how cool it would be to be elves making toys nonstop (‘so cool!’). Quick, park the two-to-three year olds in front the imagery! (And yes, there is a song buried in there somewhere.)

Being with Santa? Helping get ready? Who doesn’t want a job?! Teresa Jennings has the big grade school musical number “I Want to be an Elf” here very nearly discernible by the Carillon Elementary kids. Are you pointing at me?

The Learning Station at least mentions the ‘joy of children everywhere.’ “Me and Santa’s Elves” may teach poor grammar, but it inspires with new age music, kinda like Enya. Menial 9 to 5 is full of fun sounds: rat a tat tat.

More caffeinatedly Golden Films (those guys that produce low budget Disney animations because the original story is in public domain) shovel out “Christmas Elves” (based–ha ha–on Hans Christian Anderson’s ‘Shoemaker’ tale), wherein we learn in the theme song that elves are more like drama camp cheerleaders with enough Ritalin in them to cause seizures. Boi-i-ing!

 

A rodent may be a starter pet for children, so kids gotta dig mouse noels, yes?

Unless they’re insulting. Jack Hartmann seems serious about helping very young children develop. But when you add up the Piaget and Erickson and divide by Freud you don’t always get fun, you get “Milton, the Dancing Christmas Mouse.” This is why parents build sound-proof playrooms.

The Peter Pan Pop Band and Singers crank out another formulaic dirge of doggerel on the Snoopy’s Christmas Album compilation that was making hay off the Royal Guardsmen’s holiday hit about the Red Baron. This is “Jingles the Christmas Mouse.”

Randy Vail gets more avuncular with his grandpappy singing in “Tiny the Christmas Mouse.” It’s slow and patient and repetitive in melody–because children are stupid, i guess.

Scarier is Rodd Rogers with his “Maury the Christmas Mouse.” This is from the exceptionally weird American Song-Poem Christmas  collection. It’s twisted talent and may induce nightmares.  Beware.

I’m more partial to crazy poet-ladies who earnestly sing Joan Baez style fantasy like they take it Wiccan serious. So, with reverence guys–i’m not kidding–harken and learn from Linda Arnold’s “Christmas Mouse.” Don’t you overeat, little ones.

Last Thanksgiving we visited some of the mighty fine turkey songs the Brits delight in at Xmas time. Let’s have some white meat, now,

Tony Aylward recalls the strumming ‘seventies with “The Lucky Turkey Christmas Song.” It’s melancholy, baby.

More upbeat, but eating the turkey ’cause i’m-a mission’ you, is The Fishermen with “Me and My Turkey (Christmas Song).”

Here’s another bird flew down the chimney: The Christmas Players with “The Turkey Song (I’ve Been Invited for Christmas).” It sounds like a muppet bit with a pretty aw-shucks ending.

If I say Christmas and amphibians, you thing Kermit, right? Well, the frog of Sesame St. has covered many noels, but (apart perhaps from “Red and Green Christmas“) he never revels in what it’s like to be a low level vertebrate during the holidays. I need a frog song!

Filling in that niche (barely) is Tango the Tree Frog with “Green Christmas.”

What about Gross Kids singing “Tom the Toad“? You know that old camp song sung caroldy-style? Urm, let’s move on…

To a more literary front. Jonathan London’s children’s book Froggy’s Best Christmas gets a musical treatment by Suzy Arnowitz and others at Penguin books and it makes me so happy.

The most fun you can have with a Christmas croaker is Jim Cannon’s “Frumpy the Christmas Frog.” Excellent use of antique animation from his team.

Animals love Christmas time. Well, sheep more than goats…

And as we’re feeling more Christian that time of year, we love animals more. Well, puppies more than black widows…

Now i respect the animal husbandry involved in barn birthing, but Come On those donkeys get more holiday loving’ than they ought. So let’s work our way slowly up the phyla to Mammalia.

Starting with bugs!

Not much infestation this time of year. In fact some ‘Christmas bug’ songs are about influenza and the craze o’ Christmas! Let’s save those for later.

The most famous insect hereabouts is Charles Dickens’s “Cricket on the Hearth.” (You thought his only noel novella was about ghosties? Bah!) There’s a 1913 recording by Christie MacDonald and Reginald Weerenrath, but that poor of sound quality leaves even me wanting. 1967 paired Marlo and Danny Thomas in a Rankin Bass animated attempt to class up kids’ programming. No one cared. The only version of the title track “The Cricket on the Hearth” i can access is from a crappy VHS recording. To help determine its worth, check out the Red Ribbon Review. You could watch the whole 22-minute thing on youtube, but i figure four and a half minutes is plenty. (Danny’s intro is seen much more clearly at the end of this.)

Why have we been slogging through the 1950s? What’s so big about 1958 in particular?

Stan Freberg’s iconic “Green Chri$tma$” comes out this year. Yeah. Yeah yeah yeah. You should listen to that one again.

But… get ready novelty nerds, David Selville goes #1 on the hit parade with The Chipmunks’ “Christmas Don’t Be Late.” (You know it, so don’t bother listening.) It’s just that, well, weird Xmas music never does that NUMBER ONE chart-topping thing.

Copycats like The Happy Crickets rushed in to capitalize on this sped up sputtering sputum of spirituality. And, behold,that did not further the cause of cool new music, kids.

So let’s look at the also-rans.

One possible exception to twee helium voice equaling empty nonsense might be from cowpoke Sheb Wooley. 1958 features his big break-out ‘Purple People Eater.’ As has become fashion, he drops a holiday follow-up “Santa Claus Meets the Purple People Eater.” Watch for appearances from Sputnik, rock, and reindeer hands.

Flash in the pan Patsy Raye and the Beatniks drop a couple hepcat platters around now. They’re probably not in it for the money. But if free readings of ‘Howl’ don’t do it for you, listen up to “Beatnik’s Wish.”

12-year-old Augie Rios continues the tradition of adorable prodigies with “Donde Esta Santa Claus?” and the remarkable flipside “Ol’ Fatso.” Kids demand the darnedest things.

From the UK Lanconshireman Ken Platt (‘George Formby the Second’) sings the childish “Snowy the Christmas Kitten.” I love the drollery of the Brits; even at their silliest they do NOT condescend. This might be the sweetest Xmas song ever. Or the most treacley.

Linn Sheldon hosted a Cleveland children’s TV show in the ’50s and portrayed characters, like the pointy-eared elf Barnaby. You know, like Krusty the Klown. So here is his legacy, another animal-based carol (i’ve got to showcase animal songs here soon): “Boofo Goes Where Santa Goes.” ‘Course when i went to high school, boofo meant something else.

Shut up, children. Fun tunes for tots take a backseat this year. These few are neither fun nor nice. Kids are brats, yeah?

“Nuttin for Christmas” sold best for 6-year-old Barry Gordon fronting Art Mooney’s orchestra. Better remembered ala Stan Freberg (w/Daws Butler). Also in the same year by The Fontane Sisters, Joe Ward, and Ricky Zahnd and the Blue Jeaners.

Don Charles presented The singing Dogs in 1955 with “Jingle Bells.” (So it’s not from the ’70s like your parents told you.) Novelty music history!

Maybe it’s just me, but there’s little difference between amateurish country recording and kids’ music. So, to fill in our peanut gallery, let’s consider Sue Childers. These sample recordings, “Ooh! Ooh! Golly Gee!” and “Kiss-Mus-Tree” catch Sue early in her modest career. Dig that accordian.

Let’s take a moment to get childish. Now that we’re into the Beat generation, kids are kooky fun and kinda cool. Their innocence is un-square. So listen up to the swingin’ sounds of juvenile yuletidiness.

Across the Atlantic, girly TV personality Diana Decker recorded a couple fun-time tunes. “I’m a Little Christmas Cracker” could be considered a junior tune, but it’s a party song. Not too many little ones’ songs include ‘a bang-a bang-a bang-a!’

I’m not sure how serious polka music is, despite my supposed Bavarian ancestry. It seems tongue-in-cheek and beer-in-belly, inspiring a silliness that makes square dancing seem scientific. Thurl Ravenscroft and the Mellomen (spelled several ways… in fact also known as Big John and The Buzzards, The Crackerjacks, The Lee Brothers, and The Ravenscroft Quartet) sang harmony back up for Rosemary Clooney, Bing Crosby, and Elvis. But i remember their sound better from Disney pictures (the elephants in ‘The Jungle Book’). So i’m going to say their “Jingle Polka” is kids ‘ stuff. Get hep to it, though.

Art Carney was a comic singer in radio shows of the ’40s (Pot O’ Gold) and impersonated celebs for humorous/historical effect. His catch phrase (i read) was ‘Ya know what I mean?’ Cartoon faced, he did even better on TV with The Morey Amsterdam Show and The Honeymooners.  If you’re unfamiliar with what a goofball he was, give a listen to his “‘Twas the Night Before Christmas” and the inimitable flipside “Santa and the Doodle-Li-Boop.” Now i want one, too.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zSfGCReks9Q