Category: Caroldies (parodies of carols)

Okay, here’s something funny. Take ‘Feliz Navidad,’ a fine multicultural carol, and mix it up with drunken mayhem and you get… pretty much the same parody from different laughy lyricists.

Cheech and Chong have a take called “Police Got My Car” which seems funny when Tommy tries to reason with the fuming Sr. Marin. But, without musical backing, this otherwise pachuco parody goes up in drink.

Lizzy8784 tries not to laugh with her man singing racist fun in their own “Police Took My Car.” Well, now we have bongos.

From the other border, Snook ‘sings’ “Police Got My Car.” More funny accents, more complaints about not having wheels. Nice screechy strings.

The best Jose Feliciano comes from Bob Rivers. “Police Stop My Car” has made me laugh for many years now. Inappropriate, i suppose, but at least the cops aren’t called dicks this time.

 

 

Classic Comedy (read Dr. Demento approved) may not belong on this blog; it’s too well known. But a guy can get nostalgic, no? So those wild and crazy Upper Peninsula Micheganiks, Da Yoopers, present their official video (with the unearthing and winter sports–including WEEE! shovel sledding) of “Rusty Chevrolet.” It seems as old as Yogi Yorgeson, but it’s only as genre-tastic (1987 vs. 1949).

Newfoundland’s novelty xmas troubadour, Snook, gives us the snappy (short) satire: “Wrote off a Red Ford Ranger.” As a clown, he’s a savvy lyricist.

We’re in-between white and black for a couple tones.

‘Silver Bells’ rules the Xmas Lists of Songs since the 1951 Bob Hope movie it premiered in. It does not share its color well with others. So we’ll make fun of it, just a bit, with Jay Livingston and Ray Evans hypothesizing “Silver Balls.” Worth watching and you should be taking notes.

Let’s admit that sliver should be for bells and ornaments–but somewhere by the 1960s some of us thought the whole tree should be silver.

Steve Weeks gently rocks and rolls with his “Aluminum Christmas Tree.” Oh, the adventures he has with his new retro friend!

Country comedy comes from David DeBoy in “Aluminum Christmas Tree.” Jokes, jokes, jokes!

The big joy with aluminum trees, was lighting them any color you wanted (even TV shimmery), as told by Benny Grunch in “I Could See the Aluminum Tree Through the Pitcha Winda.” Nostalgia from the lower classes!

In fact, let’s turn on “The Color Wheel Christmas Song” by Brad Stubbs. It blends rock and pop so you can taste mild psychedelic bubble gum.

Wait’ll you get a load of The Alcoa Singers (actually The Pittsburgh Flashcats) praising their tree with “Aluminum, Aluminum” (to the tune of ‘O Tannenbaum’). You’ll wonder where you can get one!

Most songs here are about how early is too early for thinking about Christmas. Halloween is the dividing point. Before Halloween is ludicrous. After is just way too early. So we’ll save most of those for Nov. (And no Tim Burton movie musicals here. No means no.)

Last 10/31 i made the appropriate fuss about Randy Brooks’s demarcation “It’s Halloween (A Christmas Song).” It bears repeating.

As does Todd Chapelle’s “October Night.” Come on, that’s genius (‘cuz he sings so good).

“The (Too Soon for) Christmas Song” features a penguin puppet (“Paulie Glacier”). Loungey-fun to the tune of ‘The Christmas song.’ The mention of Columbus Day puts this early early early early early.

The winner here is where ‘Christmas in Kilkenny’ gets the once over with acerbic wit, if not musical joy, by John Matt. “Christmas in October” is not just snotty, it’s nasal.

Starting out our second half of the month, full of mammalian mystery and merriment, come the Austrailian versions of live birthing, milk producers. Weird with a beard.

F’r’xample: “Six White Boomers” by Rolf Harris, tell the story of a lost joey and Santa’s help–aided by his kangaroo team pulling his sleigh. (Slightly more singable-alongable are The Wayfarers with this DownUnder diddy.)

Not strange enough? Try to enjoy “I Want a Duck Billed Platypus fop Christmas” posted by John Brydon. Most novelty songs are parodies of traditional carols. A few are oddball originals. Then there is the parody of the oddball original. Got a special place in my heart for this, despite its deadpan, very dry take on humor. I mean, egg-laying mammals!

Fish don’t figure much in the story of God born as man.

Despite Jesus being a fish, or feeding the multitudes, or something…

But there’s always Jaws.

Homemade Theater’s cash grab from 1975 “Santa Jaws.”

Welcome to 1956, where Kruschev denounces Stalin–but USSR tops the Melbourne Olympics; where Montgomery faces a bus boycott–but we re-like Ike; and Elvis begins his own Ascension.

Granted, it was a year where the biggest selling single (Doris Day’s ‘Que Sera, Sera’) was still more grownup thrown up than the runners up (Elvis and Fats Domino). So don’t let’s give up on middle of the road musical fool-de-rol.

Dave King sings “Christmas and You” like the second coming of Bing. The strings are weepy, the percussion tinkly, the backup mush mouthed. Eyes half closed, lips parted, heart unmoved.

I hate to say it, but Harry Lillis Crosby Jr. is STILL making Christmas classics like “I Heard the Bells.” It ain’t novelty, but it is history. You’re right, i should not have included that.

Harry Belafonte helps us escape the conservative crud for Christ music with his down-home/island plain-spoken canticle “Mary’s Boy Child.”

But let’s get back to our ’56 schmaltz, already in progress. Here’s an amazing record on a postcard from Ford Motors, featuring Rosemary Clooney sending up ‘Jingle Bells’ with a jingle that smells.

Not loads more zombie holiday music of any worth. (That i’ve found.)

A brief shout out to Emily Sofia Smith who blogs with goth-heart and seasonally lays down a parody melody of murderous merriment that’s worth a glance. Couple years ago it was for The Walking Dead. Last year it was for Hannibal and Bates Motel. Before all that it was fanning and fawning over Dexter. Cute and charnal. A good talent.

But to put a lid on death, let’s get real low budget. Gamer Meg got her (i’m guessing) high school buddies and made a video! “Let Them Come” is a fine parody of ‘Let It Snow’ and tells a story and–well, it only takes a minute.

The Smothers Brothers, like Ernie Kovaks and Sid Cesar, brought comedy to the Twentieth Century. They’re not dead yet, so attention should still be paid to these nearly octogenarians.

Let’s start with a short blast of musical fun from their TV show: “Santa Claus is NOT Coming to Town.”