Novelty Christmas Songs
At this time of year I listen to a lot of music from different genres and performing artists. When younger I remember hearing songs played on the radio, in stores, on television and on our record player. In fact I have many of these selections on records and play them frequently whenever possible during the holiday season. These five songs are my favourites when it comes to novelty secular Christmas music.
Snoopy Versus the Red Baron was written by Phil Gernhard and Dick Holler and was reccorded by the Royal Guardsmen in 1966. Snoopy was one of the characters created by Charles M. Schultz for a comic strip entitled “The Peanuts.” Snoopy often imagined himself as an airman fighting the Red Baron during World War I.
Here is another novelty song that involves a cartoon character – The Chipmunks: Alvin, Theodore and Simon. And of course their human companion Dave Seville. “Dave Seville” was actually the stage name for the composer Ross Bagdasarian who wrote a song about three mischievous chipmunks and a struggling song writer. I have always enjoyed the way the chipmunks interact with each other.
This song is not as well known as another song that Gene Autry sang – Rudolph the Red – Nosed Reindeer. The lyrics of this song describe a loyal and faithful animal that helps Santa each year with giving out toys to children across the world. It happens to be on the same record as Snoopy versus the Red Baron.
Records come in three different sizes. The most common size is 33 1/3 but I also have some that are referred to as 78’s. These records are thicker in width and rotate faster with the grooves engraved closer together on the vinyl. Spike Jones (Lindley Armstrong Jones) was a popular musician and bandleader that specialized in novelty arrangements for both for radio and television. He and his orchestra performed this song – “All I Want for Christmas Is My Two Front Teeth” with soloist is George Rockwritten. The song was originally written by Donald Yetter Gardner in 1944.
The last song has been associated with another famous cartoon character: the Grinch from the 1966 animated version of “How the Grinch Stole Christmas”. This character was first created by Dr. Seuss (Theodore Geisel) and featured in the 1957 book of the same name. These scenes accompanying the song “You’re a Mean One, Mr. Grinch” are sung by Thurl Ravenscroft and the lyrics were written by Dr. Seuss himself. Have a wonderful Holiday Season!