We head back to kiddie records land for a version of "Jingle Bells" within the "Howdy Doody's Christmas Party" record set as released by RCA Victor in 1951!
Let's give it a listen:
Does it bother me a bit that the label says it features "Howdy Doody and its creator, Bob Smith" rather than his creator? Yes, it does! I like to think of such characters as real within their world, you know?
In any event, the whole thing is similar to "Mickey Mouse's Christmas Party" in that it features various characters singing songs, although Howdy has more of a storyline.
That seems to capture a lot of the flavor of the Howdy Doody TV show, or at least I presume it does!
The 78 rpm album had a colorful foldout showing a bunch of the characters from the show:
Kids must've loved that!
We of course encountered Howdy Doody
before with his very short version of "A Christmas Carol," but this Christmas party story is spread over four sides (or two EP sides) instead of just two sides of the little six-inch Golden record.
Back in the day, I had just one 78 record from the set, which had parts one and four (that was so you could play the sides in order on your automatic record changer by flipping the stack, the other record had sides two and three) and it was still possible to follow the story.
I had to wait until the internet rolled around to finally hear the whole thing!
Mr. Bluster acts very Scrooge-like, although nobody actually compares him to that famous character.
I had mentioned earlier that he would have seemed to be a good candidate to play Scrooge in Howdy's version of "A Christmas Carol" (rather than Captain Scuttlebutt) but taken in-universe, Mr. Bluster wouldn't want to take place in such holiday events!
The story on "Howdy Doody's Christmas Party" actually reminds me most of "Christmas Dragnet," the wonderful
Stan Freberg record from 1953. Was Howdy possibly an influence on Stan?
Anyway, a couple of the songs from Howdy's party were also released on RCA Victor in different versions in 1951 with Howdy joining the popular vocal group the Fontane Sisters:
That's fun and I think this version of "A Howdy Doody Christmas" is a snappy little number to include in one's early 1950s Christmas playlist!
And I do appreciate that Howdy is credited on the label with the Fontane Sisters just like any other artist on the RCA roster!
Speaking of such artists, the Fontane Sisters often worked with Perry Como and together they recorded this popular Christmas number in 1951:
The Sisters really get into the spirit of things with both of their partners!
At some point I'll stop going down the Perry Como rabbit hole, but right now I feel it's my duty to point out that the flipside of "It's Beginning to Look Like Christmas" is Perry's recording of "There's No Christmas Like a Home Christmas," which had been released the year before as the A-side of the record with "The Christmas Symphony" on the B-side!
It's a nice recording, so let's give it a listen:
What adds to the intrigue is that RCA's ad for the "It's Beginning" record says it's "2 Great New Sides":
Hey, wait a minute!
