’52 is a bit too serious for me. The children’s and novelty songs are not piling up in places i can find them.
This is strange, because 1952 was the year little 13-year-old Jimmy Boyd hit number one on the Billboard pop singles chart with ‘I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus.’ Novelty Christmas songs don’t hardly do that. It’ll be a kids’ world next year, baby.
Okay. Well. Let’s see. There’s Les Baxter and orchestra with “Santa Claus’ Party.” Many a hosted cartoon show started with worse music than this.
Let’s leave it at this. Country child singer Molly Bee (later a sidekick on The Pinky Lee Show) (who was also 13 at this time) shot out another version of ‘Kissing,’ Or two. On a Capitol Records childrens release (“Bozo Approved!”), was added a flipside covering Petula Clark’s “Where Did My Snowman Go?” (That was also recorded this year by Patti Page and Spike Jones w/Linda Strangis.) Can’t a girl get a writer for an original? Well, maybe… On an additional 1952 45 of ‘Kissing’ was added “Willy Claus, Little Son of Santa Claus.” This was written by an authentic lyricist, Mel Leven. I don’t know any other version of it though. Whew.