Ellen Degeneres
A pre-Christmas telecast of Ellen Degeneres’ daily TV show made viewers’ day by winkingly featuring novelty Yuletide carols.
The featurette was so ditzily droll that we did additional research on the topic on our own, and came up with even more seasonal comedy carols—including some no-no-naughty ditties!
In the process, we learned that composing and recording Christmas carols is Big Business in the music world, with Yuletide anthems that turn out to be hits (paced by “White Christmas”), making their composers and lyricists wealthy for life with the hefty royalty payments they get annually in the mail!
Our list of novelty carols gets off to a relatively squeaky clean start with old favorites, like “All I Want for Christmas is My Two Front Teeth” and “I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus.”
But, that record tune turns out to have been given a twinkling, winking twist some seasons ago, by way of its gay version titled, “I Saw Daddy Kissing Santa Claus”!
Other twists on old song titles include “Leroy The Redneck Reindeer,” “Afroman is Coming to Town,” “You’re A Mean One, Mr. Grinch,” “Vincent The Christmas Virus” (!)—and “Chipmunks Roasting On An Open Fire!”
Indeed, it soon becomes abundantly clear that negative versions of originally upbeat and cheerful carols are decidedly popular with cynical Christmas dissers.
Downbeat titles
Even more downbeat titles are raucously, irreverently represented by “nega” humdingers like “I Got A Cold for Christmas,” “The Night Santa Went Crazy,” “Christmas at Ground Zero” (!), “Thank God, It’s Not Christmas,” “Santa Claus, Go Straight to the Ghetto,” “Ain’t No Chimneys in the Projects”—and the Christmas cynics’ “national anthem,” “I Don’t Believe in Christmas!”
Things get even more “for adults only” with novelty carols that are tinged with sexy fun and games!
Christmas is supposed to be for children and cockeyed idealists and optimists, so that sounds like a contradiction in terms.
But, there are many “hormonally raging” representatives of this relatively racy subgroup, so there must be a (tipsily supportive) audience and market for it!
“Sexy” Christmas carols include “Santa Wants Some Lovin’,” “Back Door Christmas,” “I Want a Hippopotamus for Christmas,” “Christmas Came from a Hooker in Minneapolis” (!)—and “Santa Claus Got Stuck In My Chimney” (sung by Billie Holiday). Not to mention the even more downright eschatological “Santa On The Throne Again.”
Our top favorites? The just plain hoot-hearty-funny “Grandma Got Run Over By a Reindeer”—and “Please, Daddy, Don’t Get Drunk This Christmas”!