Dr. Demento Presents the Not-Quite-Greatest Christmas Novelty CD of All Time

I love Christmas music of all kinds. Sometimes, that means the just plain silly. If you, too, like to get a little goofy at Christmastime, Dr. Demento Presents the Greatest Christmas Novelty CD Of All Time is a pretty good choice. Now, I might take issue with the title, as some of my favorite novelty Christmas songs are missing, and not all the tracks leave me in stitches. Still, there’s some great stuff on here, including several songs you might have heard on the radio in December. In fact, I received this after my mom jokingly told my aunt that I wanted a hippopotamus for Christmas. My aunt responded by tracking down this CD, which contains the song that inspired that suggestion. I’m glad she did.

The Chipmunk Song - It seems that most people fall in to the “love it” or “hate it” camp when it comes to Ross Bagdasarian’s high-pitched ditty that has been a Christmas staple for half a century. Theodore, Simon and especially Alvin are anxious for Christmas. Hapless Dave Seville just wants them to get through the song, but Alvin needs to make it clear just how desperately he wants a hula hoop. When you think about it, that’s an awfully modest request. But there’s nothing modest about his haranguing manner in driving the point home. “We can hardly stand the wait; please, Christmas, don’t be late!”

All I Want for Christmas Is My Two Front Teeth - Spike Jones was a big name in novelty records, and this is one of his most memorable efforts. The liner notes point out that this is the earliest song on the album, hailing from the late 1940s, and it’s chock full of silly sound effects, as well as trumpeter George Rock’s ridiculous kiddie voice. A kazoo-laden instrumental version of Jingle Bells and a riff on A Visit From St. Nicholas add to the amusement in this tale of woe from a kid who is tired of his dental issues making him incomprehensible. “All I want for Christmas is my two front teeth so I can with you Merry Chrithmath!”

Jingle Bells - Cheerful guitar and jingling bells make an innocuous background for this rather head-scratching track. It’s dogs. Barking Jingle Bells. It reminds me of the little Casio keyboard I got when I was six or so, in which one of the sound options was barking dogs. Fun when you’re a little kid. Probably not something you really want to listen to for more than a few seconds as an adult.

The Twelve Gifts of Christmas - This Allan Sherman take on the tedious Christmas classic is the first off-kilter version that I heard, and I still consider it one of the best. His amusingly bland voice, used to such great effect in Letter From Camp, tickles the funny bone again as he chronicles the ridiculous gifts he has received for Christmas. The list is just as absurd as in the original; the difference is that this guy realizes how bizarre it all is. A quirky commentary on the commercialism and kitsch the often accompany Christmas. “On the fifth day of Christmas, my true love gave to me a statue of a lady with a clock where her stomach ought to be, a simulated alligator wallet, a calendar book with the name of my insurance man, green polka-dot pajamas and a Japanese transistor radio.”

I Want a Hippopotamus for Christmas - I discovered this song written by John Rox and recorded by brassy-voiced youngster Gayla Peevey about four years ago, but it’s been floating around since in the early 1950s. Gayla, who was ten at the time, actually got her hippopotamus, which she donated to the Oklahoma City Zoo, which I imagine was a little roomier than her “two-car garage.” Stereotypically, children are known to petition Santa for ponies and puppies for Christmas. This song is thinking out of the box, and as a life-long hippo lover, I always get a smile out of it. “No crocodiles or rhinoceroses; I only like hippopotamuses, and hippopotamuses like me too!”

Nuttin’ for Christmas - Stan Freberg is one of several singers who recorded this song in the 1950s. He sounds like quite the rascal, with a voice that reminds of ne’er-do-well Lampey in Pinocchio. I prefer versions where the kid seems contrite over his misdeeds; here, he most definitely revels, even going so far as to conspire with a Christmas burglar. Definitely not a child to emulate… “I did a dance on Mommy’s plants, climbed a tree and tore my pants, filled the sugar bowl with ants. Somebody snitched on me.”

A Christmas Carol - I love Tom Lehrer, one of the mid-century pillars of the novelty music scene. Very much like Straight No Chaser’s Christmas Can-Can but a good deal shorter, and only featuring one singer, this is a cynical look at Christmas shopping craziness. It incorporates several traditional carols like Hark! The Herald Angels Sing, Angels We Have Heard on High and God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen, inserting new lyrics poking fun at the insanity that ensues this time of year. “On Christmas Day, you can’t get sore. Your fellow man you must adore. There’s time to rob him all the more the other three-hundred and sixty-four.”

Grandma Got Run Over By a Reindeer - I have mixed feelings about this Randy Brooks song. Really, it’s in rather poor taste. On the other hand, it has been known to make me chuckle now and then. Not poor Grandma’s plight, but some of those lines are pretty funny. Plus, my beloved Irish Rovers recorded it before Elmo and Patsy did, and loyalty compels me to at least tolerate their version, which is a lot less hickish than this one, in which the singers sound tipsy half the time. I do love the part, though, when “Grandpa” kicks in with his super-deep voice… “Grandma got run over by a reindeer walkin’ home from our house Christmas Eve. You can say there’s no such thing as Santa, but as for me and Grandpa, we believe.”

I Yust Go Nuts at Christmas - Recorded by Harry Stewart as Yogi Yorgesson, this is another pretty old track, hailing from 1949. As a gal with Swedish blood who loves listening to Garrison Keillor’s A Prairie Home Companion, I get a kick out of this faux Scandinavian who tells us, in his ridiculous accent, all the ways he gets a little loony at Christmas. And mostly, that seems to be a good thing. Also, the second song on the album to draw heavily from A Visit From St. Nicholas. “Oh, I yust go nuts at Christmas. Shopping sure drives me berserk. On the day before, I rush in da store like a nervous nelly yerk…”

The Twelve Gifts of Christmas - Here’s another 12 Days parody, and it’s more of a comedy routine than a straightforward song. Bob and Doug McKenzie, a Canadian comedy duo portrayed by Rick Moranis and Dave Thomas in a series of Great White North sketches, present a more talking than singing list of gifts, and it’s sort of the opposite of Allan Sherman’s song since this is stuff they actually want to get. It’s very salt-of-the-earth stuff: beer, bacon, French toast, turtlenecks, comic books… They only really make it to day eight before konking out, and they never quite manage to sync up with the cheesy background music that’s always running too fast for them, but that’s part of the fun. “Boy, that song was a beauty. It… it moved me.” “Yeah, I think it ranks up there with Stairway to Heaven.”

Green Chri$tma$ - And here we have the second 12 Days parody in a row, though that’s only one element of this old-timey Stan Freberg sketch that deposits Ebenezer Scrooge and Bob Cratchit into a board meeting in which Scrooge and his sycophants espouse the value of using Christmas to advertise products while Bob tries to argue for the true meaning of the holiday. Parodies of We Wish You a Merry Christmas, Deck the Halls and Jingle Bells make an appearance, and carols like O Come All Ye Faithful show up in instrumental form. It presents a pretty bleak picture of how thoroughly Christmas has turned into a big cash cow, and it ends on a bit of a downer. A tad on the preachy side, but it makes its point effectively. “Christmas has two S’s in it, and they’re both dollar signs.” “Yeah, but they weren’t there to begin with. The people keep hoping you’ll remember, but you never do.” “Remember what?” “Whose birthday we’re celebrating.”

I’m a Christmas Tree - Short and pretty much pointless. A collaboration between Wild Man Fischer and Dr. Demento himself, It’s a tuneless dirge by two guys accompanied only by jingle bells, and they lament how depressing it is to be a Christmas tree. Well, it certainly sounds depressing, and they appear to be making it up off the top of their heads, which accounts for the fact that half the time they are spouting different lyrics. No rhythm, little rhyme, nonsensical, and they sound drunk. “Oh, Santa Claus! Oh, Santa Claus! He breaks lots of laws! He trespasses! He breaks and enters! He travels all around the world without a valid passport!”

I Saw Daddy Kissing Santa Claus - A one-note parody with a twist ending. In the original song, the kid gets a little peek and the humor lies in his misunderstanding of the situation. Here, the narrator, the adult Kip Addotta sounding like a whiny kid and thus not very musical, gets a whole big eyeful, and no matter who it is underneath that Santa suit, he comes across as a major peeping tom. A xylophone, accordion and trombone add to the rather annoying sound of the track. “There must be some mistake. Was I really awake? I rubbed my eyes and moved in close, a better look to take…”

Santa Claus and His Old Lady - In this Cheech and Chong sketch, one is trying to explain to the other who Santa Claus is, and it’s a pretty strange take on the iconic character. They both seem kinda stoned, which I guess is pretty typical for the duo. A bit of instrumental background music and a reference to Donde Este Santa Claus?, but mostly it’s just straight talking and pretty dull. “Oh, man, like you don’t know you Santa Claus is, man.” “Yeah, well, I’m not from here, man. Like, I’m from Pittsburgh. I don’t know too many local dudes.”

Christmas at Ground Zero - Usually I love Weird Al Yankovic, but I just can’t find anything funny about nuclear fallout. And I thought his Night Santa Went Crazy was grotesque! He really does sound insane here in this original song, and not in a good way. The cheesy 40s-style background music just makes it all the more irritating. “It’s Christmas at Ground Zero. The button has been pressed. The radio just let us know that this is not a test.”

Christmas Dragnet - Stan Freberg and Daws Butler collaborate on this nearly 7-minute-long Dragnet-style sketch that finishes off the album. A guy named Grudge doesn’t believe in Santa Claus, and they bring him in for questioning. Joe and Frank exchange banter with each other and him. Rambly Frank has a crisis of faith, terse Joe tries to prove Santa’s existence, the three of them head up to the North Pole to investigate further. Okay, but a bit on the drab and overlong side. “It’s Santa Claus! It’s Santa Claus!” “He’s the only guy I know can make everybody happy in one night.”

All the songs I really love are in the first half of the album; the rest are somewhere on the scale between so-so and annoying. The great stuff outweighs the clunkers for me, but it’s an album that I tend to skip around on. Chances are, though, that you will find at least one or two songs here to tickle your funny bone.