Event Recap Chat with Duke Allen about Christmas Flipsides and Flops

[Duke Allen]

Carney jumped in and repeated the poem in the bop beat, dancing in place while doing it. Everybody grooved on Carney’s wild performance, so Krasnow rolled the tape and they captured Art Carney’s bopping around for posterity. It came out as a Christmas B side in '54.

 

[Jeff Westover]

Any idea how it was received then?

 

[MerryCarey]

What was the "A"?

 

[SBellsRikki]

just amazing

 

[Jordan Rivers]

I'm buying that one

 

[Duke Allen]

"Santa and the Doodle-Li-Boop" -- about a forlorn little boy who wants a doodle-li-boop for Christmas. (We aren't told exactly what that is.)

 

[SBellsRikki]

this is making me so sad that I can't use it in the podcast!!! ugh...

 

[MerryCarey]

Oh yeah, I know that one.

 

[SBellsRikki]

ha ha ha love the ending

 

[Jeff Westover]

I think I've heard Doodle-li-Boop too

 

[Jeff Westover]

@SBellsRikki if you took an hour or two on Kringle you can play whatever you want

 

[MerryCarey]

I have a children's album from the 1950s where Carney sings nonsense songs. Great stuff. "There's a Dodo Bird in the Banyan Tree." He was in a band back in in the 1940s.

 

[Jeff Westover]

(we're reeling her in @e_xander)

 

[Duke Allen]

Carney's Columbias were usually issued to the kiddie market, with rare exceptions ("Song of the Sewer" had Carney in character as Ed Norton, and that one was a mainstream hit). But in their day, Carney's flights of fancy were usually expressly for children.

 

[MerryCarey]

Maybe so, but I still listen to them!

 

[MerryCarey]

I'm still part children.

 

[Duke Allen]

Carney was with Horace Heidt's band in the 1940s. I think you can find Heidt's movie POT O' GOLD on YouTube (Carney is seen throughout).

 

[Jeff Westover]

You're still a child. Thank goodness

 

[Jeff Westover]

ha!

 

[Duke Allen]

Time to wrap up the hour with a Christmas flop side for the ages. Get a load of this one, from 1961, and I'll get busy on the notes...