Christmas Song #9:

Bob & Doug McKenzie--12 Days Of Christmas



And now we reach the part of this series in which I write about the greatest Christmas novelty CD of all time. I am, of course, referring to Dr. Demento’s Greatest Christmas Novelty CD Of All Time.

So, when you’re 12, and you have a really stupid sense of humor, you tend to like silly and stupid things. And so this album comes into your life, after years of listening to John Tesh and Amy Grant at Christmastime, and you think you’ve discovered the only Christmas album that will ever matter. And over time, that assumption will inevitably prove wrong, and the album will lose the sort of charm it had when you were younger. But it’ll always have a place in your heart, just because of how it delighted you so years and years ago.

So that’s Dr. Demento’s Christmas album, in a nutshell. I’ve been listening to it a couple times this week, and it brings up some nice memories. I wouldn’t go out and recommend you buy it right away: rest assured, a lot of the novelty Christmas songs you have over time become extremely irritated by after hearing them for the 5046th time (i.e. “Grandma Got Run Over By A Reindeer,” “The Chipmunk Song,” “Jingle Bells” by The Singing Dogs) are all here.

But there are also some gems. There’s a couple by Stan Freberg that I like such as “Nuttin’ For Christmas” and “Green Christmas” (which is more a radio skit turning A Christmas Carol into a modern ode to commercialism). There’s this really weird song called “I’m A Christmas Tree” which is basically a guy wailing out of tune about how depressing it is to be a tree. There’s something by Tom Lehrer, Cheech & Chong, and also a song that I’ll write about in a couple of days (you could probably figure it out if you tried).

But the best—of course, is the one I’ve chosen for all of you. I’m not actually a fan of usual renditions of this song—it’s either because I can’t remember all the various gifts for each day or because it’s just kind of boring. And I’m only vaguely familiar with the Canadian comedic stylings of Bob & Doug McKenzie. But nonetheless, it’s great.

I think what really makes this amusing to me is how terribly inept the brothers are at recording this song. They go through three verses before they decide to change a lyric. They can’t keep up with the Casio keyboard backing and often lose their place. They often get dominated by the backing singers, who actually know what they’re doing. I don’t know what it is that makes this so amusing to me, but… it works, I suppose.

Anyway, the video above is actually the shortened version of the song (I chose it because it’s animated and not just a static image—even if the last two minutes is essentially just an ad). You miss out on some discussion on how there got to be 12 Days Of Christmas when there’s just Christmas Day and Eve, New Year’s Day and Eve, and Boxing Day. As well as an argument as to why one of the brothers forgot to include donuts as part of the gifts. They’re not necessary per se, but… just so you know what you’re missing.