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