Good day, and welcome to Day Twelve

[spatch]

I'm not really here, I'm still enjoying my god-given right to a day off IN BED, but I just realized that this past holiday season, I didn't hear one single instance of Bob & Doug McKenzie's Twelve Days of Christmas.

I know that Twelve Days parodies are ubiquitous as all get-out, and annoying to boot because it's already the longest song EVER, unless you pull an Allan Sherman and sing "And all that other stuff" to get to whatever funny thing you've substituted for a partridge in a pear tree. (Sherman's partridge was "A Japanese Transistor Radio" but the best was his fifth one, "A statue-of-a-lady-with-a-clock... where her stomach ought to beeeeeeee!" and I'll award the Brass Figligee with Bronze Oak Leaf Palm to anyone who can correctly identify where that phrase was recycled and used again in another song.)

But I guess at least down here in the States, the McKenzie Brothers been supplanted in our collective Christmas pop consciousness by David Bowie and Bing Crosby (arguably are the more incongruous of the duos, but still.) I have a warm spot in my heart for those two lads from the Great White North.

"This should just be the Two Days of Christmas, it's too hard for us!"

"You know what, it should be the Thirteen Days of Christmas, and on the thirteenth day, you could've gone down to one of those good donut shops, where if you buy a dozen you get one free, and that would be thirteen donuts for the Thirteenth Day of Christmas."

Comments

[hemlock-martini.livejournal.com]

The wife and I were puzzled about that just recently. Neither of us could remember hearing "Twelve Days" on the radio--it was a Bob And Doug-less Xmas. I call War On Christmas shenanigans on this unfair censoring of our drunken pseudo-brothers in the Great White North!

When I was a kid, my favorite part of that song was the groovy little synthesizer outro.

[fancycwabs.livejournal.com]

I dunno, saying "simulated alligator wallet" is as close as Americans get to ululating.

[spatch]

Unless they're auditioning for American Idol, apparently.

[mmcirvin.livejournal.com]

Said the Alligator King to his seven sons...

[spatch]

Damn, you're good.

[sanspoof.livejournal.com]

Ah! It all comes together!

[metahacker.livejournal.com]

Strange, I heard it about a half-dozen times.

Of course, two of those were via my own iTunes...I did have to explain what a tuque was to galaneia, though.

[oakenguy.livejournal.com]

Thinking back, I heard the Muppet version (which made me laugh out loud again, Beaker singing _anything_ being comedy gold) once, but no Bob and Doug this year! How bizarre!

[ckd]

How bizarre!

Actually, I'm pretty sure OMC never released a Christmas album.

As for unfavorite/favorite holiday songs: I don't recall hearing "Grandma Got Run Over By A Reindeer" this year, which is a good thing. I'm still a fan of No Doubt's "Oi To The World" and the Barenaked Ladies/Sarah McLachlan "God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen".

[muse0fire.livejournal.com]

The McKenzie Brothers "Twelve Days" is in our regular iTunes playlist of holiday songs, so I got plenty of it...

... and a beer!

[spatch]

"...on my knee."
"Yeah, that beer's empty."

[amandaruth2001.livejournal.com]

I didn't hear it either, and I am a) in the Great White North, and b) a near-constant listener of two all-Christmas radio stations from about Dec. 1 - Dec. 18 (because after that point it's finally driven me to insanity and I have to go back to NPR.)

I did, however, hear "The Christmas Shoes," about a bazillion times, which is a bazallion and one times too many.

[limax.livejournal.com]

It seems to me there's always a new 12 Days parody every year. I used to think about collecting them, but now I feel they're all annoying. The one I saw this year, but thankfully did not hear: 'Redneck 12 Days of Xmas'

[pecosy.livejournal.com]

I've never heard Bob'n'Doug on the radio, not once. I came across it only 2 years ago on one of those Now Really This IS What I Call Christmas Really I Mean It Vol. 27 compilations. It got heavy play this season in the pecos household. Plus I found out my roommate had the whole Great White North album buried in some 'misc' folder so joy was had this Christmastime.

One I love and almost never hear is Cheech & Chong's "Santa Claus And His Old Lady." This year I only heard it once, playing in the SF airport as part of the ambiance music, but it was so low all I could do was recognize it. I need to track that one down...

[spatch]

Oh yeah, I played with those dudes man, yeah, last year at the Fillmore, man...

[limax.livejournal.com]

A sacramento DJ friend of mine played that on his morning show before he got sacked. (No, he was not one of the 5... he was on the *other* radio station that fired a lot of people)

[jimmystagger.livejournal.com]

Bob & Doug's "Great White North" album was a STAPLE of Saturday nights at my house growing up. It was not Saturday night until my father descended into the basement and the house shook with the tones of "Take Off" with the boys and Geddy Lee.

[ilovehpl.livejournal.com]

That really *was* Geddy Lee, wasn't it? WOW.

[spatch]

Ten bucks is ten bucks, eh?

[minkrose]

I thought about you when I first read this post because he rides the T every day, too. They wrote out a whole Twelve Days Annoying Tourists in the comments (but the rest of the commenters aren't from Boston).

Personally, "a mailman with a taser" is going to my favourite partridge replacement for all time.

[grumqa.livejournal.com]

A friend from high school and I used the "It's too hard for us" line a lot. We enjoyed slacking immensely.

Next Christmas, get me a chainsaw.

You want christmas musics? Work retail.

[spritelord.livejournal.com]

My store went on a mandatory christmas radio station "The Lite!" from the day after thanksgiving to the day after christmas. Each of us workers averaged 50 hours a week in that time. I heard every christmas song ever recorded. Plus some of school kids murdering them.

That said, Bob & Doug were a pleasant diversion from the rest of them. Usually twice a day.

[cursethedark.livejournal.com]

Man, I knew the Alligator King one, too. Stupid bad timing.

As far as favorite Christmas songs: I've only heard it a few times, but I love "Santa Got A DWI." Too bad nobody's played that one in years.

Least favorite is probably "Christmas Is Coming Twice This Year" by...I think it's the Hollytones. Just kinda boils the blood.

[babs-the-nymph.livejournal.com]

Thankfully, there are MP3 players. On the way to my company Christmas party, Janric played Bob and Doug McKenzie's Twelve Days of Christmas. My favorite part, of course, is still "...and a beer!"

Radio sucks these days. Tis much better to make your own radio.