Christmas Songs That DON'T Suck, and Other Musings, Part I

Not even Frank Sinatra can
rock white socks like Dean.

After posting about the Christmas songs I abhor, a few others came to mind, and I realized that I could probably start a new blog called Christmas Songs I Abhor and have enough material to post every day for a year, then tie them all together and get a book deal.

Some day I'll do that. Today is not that day. AND DON'T STEAL MY IDEA OR I'LL FRIGGING SUE YOU IN INTERNET COURT. So, let's move on to my musings about other Christmas songs.



BUT FIRST, A DIGRESSION ABOUT THURL RAVENSCROFT
Here's a fun parlor game for you, assuming you have a parlor and like games. Ask someone you know (or a complete stranger, if you're into that sort of thing), "Have you ever heard of Thurl Ravenscroft?"

Speaking of which, have you ever heard of Thurl Ravenscroft? You might not know his name, but if you've ever watched How the Grinch Stole Christmas or heard any of the songs from that cartoon — or watched a Frosted Flakes commercial sometime before 2005 — you've heard his voice.

Meet Tony the Tiger.

There's a misconception that Frankenstein Boris Karloff, who narrated the Grinch special, also sang the songs including "You're a Mean One, Mr. Grinch," but it was actually Thurl, a mainstay of several Disney productions and whose face is part of the Haunted Mansion at the Disney parks, whose deep-deep voice was uncredited.

Besides having a name that's worthy of a badass Bond villain, Thurl was the voice of Tony the Tiger and sang a bunch of curious songs, many of which can be found here. A couple are Christmas songs, including "God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen" and a bizarre novelty record called "Santa's Too Fat for the Hula Hoop." The latter features "The Pixies," which was an all-girl group, not (alas) the band fronted by Frank Black.

Here's one of my favorite Thurl songs:

The song sounds so authentic you actually feel as if you're coming down with scurvy.

AND THIS IS ABOUT CHRISTMAS HOW AGAIN?
Oh yeah. So, anyway. I'd mentioned that my mother used to play that friggin' Perry Como record all the time. Thankfully, she also had in the Christmas record rotation the songs of another artist, one I'll never get sick of, even if I were stuck on a desert island and there was a solar-powered iPod connected to a loudspeaker and stuck in a coconut tree playing the same songs on loop for eternity as I awaited that rescue boat that I know would never arrive.

That artist is Andy Williams.

I might be exaggerating a bit, but Andy Williams is simply the greatest human being of all time, though I know nothing about him and don't know much about his other songs (I've never heard him sing his signature song, "Moon River") other than two of the greatest Christmas songs of all time, "It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year" and "Happy Holidays." I told Mrs. The Anthony Show how much I loved those two songs and she thought I was being sarcastic or ironic or ironically sarcastic or sarcastically ironic, but I can't tell you how happy those songs make me.

When Andy Williams appeared at the Macy's parade last Thanksgiving (or maybe it was the year before), all 80-something of him lip-synching his classics while wearing pristine-white tennis shoes, I was more excited than someone my age should be on a Thanksgiving morning.

I should tell you about an interesting fact about Andy Williams that I discovered, thanks to Wikipedia, a couple of years ago. When I'm bored at work, which is like every 15 minutes, I usually head to Wikipedia to investigate a person, place, or thing I've been thinking about. (Hey, Jim Nabors is still alive!)

On one particular day, I decided to look up the somewhat-attractive girl from The Party, a weird but amusing Peter Sellers film from 1968 (I may blog about it at a later date) that might be remade with Sascha Baron Cohen. Her name was Claudine Longet, and I learned from her Wikipedia page that not only was she married to Andy Williams, but a few years after divorcing Williams (she was 18, he 32 when they met) she accidentally killed her then-boyfriend, an Olympic skier, and Williams publicly supported her throughout the trial.

What does this mean? First, Andy Williams is a class act; second, divorcing Andy Williams is probably the worst thing you can do.

WHAT OTHER SONGS DO YOU LIKE?

This.

I'm noticing that my digressions are making this post longer than I intended, so I'll have to split it into two (or more) parts, but I'll conclude this post by noting that I like "Here Comes Santa Claus," particularly Gene Autry's version, which was used in Christmas Vacation as the SWAT team crashes through every window at the Griswolds' house.

The only things I know about Gene Autry is the fact that he made a lot of Westerns I did not see, he owned the California Angels (as they were known then), and he sang "Here Comes Santa Claus." (Elvis and lots of others sang it too, but I prefer Autry, who, by the way, co-wrote the song and sings so earnestly that you really believe that Santa is coming down Santa Claus Lane. I wish my street had my name: "Here comes Anthony down Anthony Boulevard!")

There's something unique about this song in that it mentions both Santa and God. Most songs go just one way: either they embrace the Santa-reindeer-secular aspects of the holiday, or they go full-on "songs you'll hear in church." After all, there's this line:

Santa knows that we're all God's children / That makes everything right

Santa knows his place, and so should you!

WE DIDN'T REALLY TOUCH ON THAT MANY SONGS, DID WE?
Nope. But I'll have more to say on this subject. Tomorrow, probably.