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Jingle Bells (Batman Smells): An incomplete festive folk-rhyme taxonomy
- ItsBob 10mo agoMy wife and I had a good chuckle at these. The one we both remember is the one about Penguin losing his lollipop and buying a Milky Way. However, we both agreed that when comparing the UK(ish) and US(ish) variants, the UK ones are much more fun and colourful: The US ones seem a little, erm, boring!
- baobun 10mo agoSomeone should tell the author that Robin laying an egg is the source of Batman's smell.
- Sophira 10mo agoTom Scott did a video in 2020 on the exact same subject and premise[0], and it's super interesting. I'd recommend it to anybody who enjoyed this article, honestly. [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V5u9JSnAAU4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V5u9JSnAAU4 - Tom Scott, 'I Asked 64,182 People About “Jingle Bells, Batman Smells”. Here's What I Found Out.'
- robrain 10mo agoThank you for remembering and sharing this - I knew I'd seen it before, I just couldn't recall where. Mr Scott is and was (and maybe will be?) the obligatory xkcd of nerd experiments.
- modeless 10mo agoYeah the Tom Scott video is based on significantly more data. Seems weird that this person wouldn't have found it when researching this topic.
- adzm 10mo agoI saw something similar on Reddit r/FoundPaper where a parody of twinkle twinkle little star had a hilarious divergence at the end. Not all mutations have reproductive fitness but it is fascinating to see in the wild. https://www.reddit.com/r/FoundPaper/comments/1p7bvtz/found_near_an_elementary_school/ https://www.reddit.com/r/FoundPaper/comments/1p7bvtz/found_n...
- nephihaha 10mo agoDoes "While Shepherds Washed their Socks by Night" count?
- jimnotgym 10mo agoWhile Shepherds watched their kidney beans All boiling in a pot A load of soot came tumbling down and spoiled the blinking lot Alternative. The Angel of the Lord came down and eat the blinking lot. Definitely British. Evidenced by the term 'kidney bean'
- phantasmish 10mo agoI’m in the US and was able to look straight up from where I’m sitting at a shelf of canned food and spot a store brand can labeled “kidney beans”. We call them that, too.
- nephihaha 10mo agoI know this as "when Shepherds washed their socks by night."
- randycupertino 10mo agoHow about the add-ons/call-backs to Rudolph the Red nosed reindeer: Rudolph the red-nosed reindeer *(reindeer)* Had a very shiny nose *(like a light bulb)* And if you ever saw it *(saw it)* You would even say it glows *(like a light bulb)* All of the other reindeer *(reindeer)* Used to laugh and call him names *(like Pinochio)* They never let poor Rudolph *(Rudolph)* Play in any reindeer games *(like Monopoly)* Then one foggy Christmas Eve Santa came to say *(Ho Ho Ho)* Rudolph with your nose so bright Won't you guide my sleigh tonight? Then all the reindeer loved him *(loved him)* And they shouted out with glee *(yippee)* "Rudolph the red-nosed reindeer *(reindeer)* You'll go down in history!" *(Like George Washington!")*
- someothherguyy 10mo agohttps://acedino.medium.com/regional-variation-in-rudolph-the-red-nosed-reindeer-aac34da4a022 https://acedino.medium.com/regional-variation-in-rudolph-the... a (original?) version is from 1975 on john denver's https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rocky_Mountain_Christmas https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rocky_Mountain_Christmas https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OlvxvSDOrAA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OlvxvSDOrAA
- mxmilkiib 10mo agofwiw, from North East Fife (Scotland), it has been ('89/'90) "the Batmobile lost a wheel, and landed in the Tay", the Tay being the big volume river between Fife (the Scottie dog shaped bit on the East) n Dundee/Tayside (with the Tay having come via Perth etc)
- schoen 10mo agoI only know the Tay from the poem: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Tay_Bridge_Disaster https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Tay_Bridge_Disaster Hopefully I'll get to see it sometime.
- nephihaha 10mo agoNever heard that round there. I wouldn't count Dundee as "north east Scotland" either. Angus maybe. That's where they begin to sound like north easterners.
- philiplu 10mo agoHuh, my childhood version was almost the standard US one, but the ending was “and Alfred saved the day”, not shown in the article’s diagram. This would have been learned in the Midwest US (St. Louis vicinity), late 1960s.
- LorenDB 10mo agoThe redneck version goes something like "Jingle Bells, shotgun shells, Santa Claus is dead. Grandma got her .44 and shot him in the head." Don't ask, it's not original with me.
- cgriswald 10mo agoMust have been other Grandma, since Santa Claus killed Grandma in a hit-and-run. Revenge maybe?
- cvwright 10mo agoThe redneck version that I heard as a kid was way worse than that. Things I won’t repeat…
- culi 10mo ago[flagged]
- montag 10mo agoGeneralizing a bit, aren’t we? I never heard this version of the rhyme
- garbagewoman 10mo agoYour experience isn’t universal either
- jdminhbg 10mo ago> My mother grew up in the Soviet Bloc Ah yes, famous racial utopias, all of them.
- gostsamo 10mo agoSurprisingly, communism was antiracist which explains why it was popular outside the US. There is the fact that many communists were racist on a personal level, but the state policies were inclusive due to the very nature of the ideology. As someone who also comes from the former block, I think that communism was a bad idea with terrible implementation but it also had its moments no matter what the US propaganda is trying to present it as.
- hecanjog 10mo ago"Jingle bells, Batman smells, Robin laid an egg. The Batmobile lost its wheel and the Joker ran away." is the version I heard as a kid in the American midwest. It's fascinating to me that this rhyme was international at a time in my life before I'd ever heard about the internet. Edit: Oh, it's simple. This is the version broadcast on The Simpsons TV show in 1989 and I must have heard it second-hand from my fellow students who were allowed to watch the Simpsons.
- cgriswald 10mo agoWe were singing this before the The Simpsons, so I wonder if it was the show that made it international or it already was that way.
- jephson 10mo agoI recall being 6 years old and singing the "Wonder Woman lost her bosoms" variant at primary school in New Zealand. This was 1982 so definitely sung internationally prior to The Simpsons.
- paulmooreparks 10mo agoSame. I was singing this in the very early 80's, if not late 70's.
- NedF 10mo ago[dead]
- ChrisMarshallNY 10mo agoA classic: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_XU6zrGyUUo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_XU6zrGyUUo
- randycupertino 10mo agoDoes anyone else remember the 12 pains of Christmas? RIGGING UP THE LIGHTS!! Yo-ho, sending Christmas cards. The damn lightS!!! Facing my in laws! One light goes out, they all go out!!!!!!! FiiiiiIIIIIIiiiive months of bills!! She's a witch, I hate her. You're so smart, YOU rig up the lights! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aMxgttJpbZE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aMxgttJpbZE
- icehawk 10mo agoIt was several years after first time I heard this that, that i realized that #3 was an impression of Archie Bunker with: "Edith, get me a beer, huh.", "oh jeez look at this" and "oh who's got the terlit paper."
- ChrisMarshallNY 10mo agoThere’s probably not too many folks here, that even remember that show. R.I.P. Meathead
- ChrisMarshallNY 10mo agoI wonder how those subtitles were made. Reminds me of the “Misheard Joe Cocker Lyrics” video: https://vimeo.com/448217206 https://vimeo.com/448217206
- QuadmasterXLII 10mo agoGrowing up, the lyrics always included the verse as well as the chorus: “… and the joker got away! // Batman in the kitchen // Robin in the hall // Joker in the bathroom // peeing on the wall. // …” but I can’t remember how it ended. does anyone else remember this?
- cgriswald 10mo agoWe usually ended it there, but I vaguely recall a version where Batman slips on it (the pee) and breaks his balls; I don't recall the actual verse though.
- jimnotgym 10mo agoI heard it in the UK before the Simpsons. Robin flew away Mr silly bit his willy on the M1 motorway. I seem to remember hearing the standard US one in the bit at the end of The Cosby Show, which was on free to air TV soon after getting home from school.
- jimnotgym 10mo agoEdit: Robin laid an egg. Batmobile lost its wheel and the commissioner broke his leg...I think.
- shagie 10mo agoTangent - Monktoberfest 2016: Bryan Cantrill - Oral Tradition in Software Engineering https://youtu.be/4PaWFYm0kEw?si=avSAlBsCVUzjW2xo&t=163 https://youtu.be/4PaWFYm0kEw?si=avSAlBsCVUzjW2xo&t=163 (only 2:43 in ... so after the relevant clip, start over and you'll catch back up quickly) > so let's just do a little experiment here ... um ... so if I say Jingle Bells Batman Smells you say ... > okay where did you learn that? If that's not a movie reference; it's not not from a TV show; you learn that the way I learned that you learned that - on the playground. You learned that from another eight-year-old another seven-year-old ...
- _mes7 10mo agoAdvanced version from early 2000s (US), incorporating several additional lyrical-flow improvements on phrases seen in the Tom Scott video and TFA: "Dashing through the snow - - on a pair of broken skis - - -" "Down the hills we go - - - Crashing into trees!" "The snow is turning red - - I think I'm almost dead - -" "And now I'm in the hospital with stitches in my head! Oh, -" "Jingle bells, Batman smells, Robin laid an egg! - - -" "Batmobile lost a wheel and the Joker played ballet! HEY!" "Jingle bells, Batman smells, Granny got a gun, - - -" "? ? ?, and shot a man in 1931! HEY!!!"
- raldi 10mo agoI’m guessing the missing part probably ended with an internal rhyme for “man”. Maybe “missed the can” (she was aiming at)?
- _mes7 10mo agoCould be, although not that particular completion. The second chorus was rare and I'm kind of unsure about "shot a man". Can't edit previous comment but should have just put it as: ? ? ?, ? ? ? ?, in nineteen thirty one. Hey!
- deleted 10mo ago[deleted]
- janglebell 10mo ago[dead]
- prokopton 10mo agoThe egg is canon. Joker sings this version in the BtAS Christmas episode. https://youtu.be/DpV9f4Tv8kA?feature=shared https://youtu.be/DpV9f4Tv8kA?feature=shared
- gota 10mo agoAll I can think of reading this is how many versions - and how enriched with genius local detail - of the Illiad, Gilgamesh, etc there must have been when they were strictly oral traditions
- bryanrasmussen 10mo agofrom The Carols of Halloween - https://medium.com/luminasticity/the-carols-of-halloween-47cac522b256 https://medium.com/luminasticity/the-carols-of-halloween-47c... Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells why won’t they shut up Being chased by werewolves, ain’t this just my luck Dashing through the gloom In a one-horse open cart Trying to escape the doom Where Werewolves eat my heart You had to read the tome And utter the mad curse Now if we get home I’m sure it’s in a hearse Ohhhh… Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells why won’t they shut up Being chased by werewolves, ain’t this just my luck
- bethekidyouwant 10mo agoIt’s almost striking to read something not written by AI
- crtified 10mo agoGrowing up in northern Queensland (Australia) in the 1980's, our primary school boy's version was : "Jingle Bells, Batman smells, Robin flew away, Wonder Woman lost her boobs - flying TAA." Context note : TAA or Trans Australia Airlines was a major Australian domestic airline of the time, later merged into Qantas.
- themaninthedark 10mo agoRING THEIR BELLS (aka "The Munchkin's Theme" ) (to the tune of "Jingle Bells") Slashing through the Orcs With a good two-handed blade Over corpses we go And through the gore we wade Mace on helmet rings Making bodies fly What fun to sing our Slaying Song And watch these suckers DIE! https://hack.org/~mc/writings/hackerdom/ring-their-bells.text https://hack.org/~mc/writings/hackerdom/ring-their-bells.tex...
- khedoros1 10mo agoI think I found, and memorized, that about 25 years ago. There was a list of other songs in the file too.
- themaninthedark 10mo agoYes, I distinctly remember the lyrics in one with a line "Jack Frost ripping of your nose" but the quick Google just gave me Misheard lyrics....
- khedoros1 10mo agoThere was one "Walking through the graveyard at midnight" ("stitching up some zombies" ?) or something, with a necromancer collecting zombie parts. To the tune of "walking in a winter wonderland". Not what I was looking for, but I found these: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLJtJNNXaEYrrZP99qBx-k6PPTewTmha-C https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLJtJNNXaEYrrZP99qBx-k... From this guy's page: https://www.paperspencils.com/category/my-projects/dd-christmas-carols/ https://www.paperspencils.com/category/my-projects/dd-christ... Ah! I think I found the ones that I was thinking of: https://archive.org/stream/netbookofbardsongs/BardSongsNetBook.txt https://archive.org/stream/netbookofbardsongs/BardSongsNetBo... Nothing about Jack Frost or "ripping", unfortunately.
- kazinator 10mo agoIt's interesting how so many of the versions have an end rhyme with "ay", even when it doesn't match anything in the twisted tune itself. It's obviously rhyming with the original song, which has "all the way" and "sleigh". I.e. you need at least the final "ay" in order to properly evoke that phonetic aspect of the original.