The 1956 Golden Record of Howdy Doody's adaptation of "A Christmas Carol" is a fascinating little thing.
The two sides together run less than three and a half minutes, which is the max for these records, but they squeeze a lot in there.
It's basically a song with some dialogue mixed in. The song itself doesn't have any particular Howdy Doody overtones, so it makes me think it was written before they decided to put Howdy and his friends in it.
The song was written by Mary Rodgers, with last name Beaty at the time, who was the daughter of Broadway luminary Richard Rodgers!
She's an interesting individual herself with credits running from composer of the Broadway show "Once Upon a Mattress" to author of the book "Freaky Friday."
The talent shows in this song, which is a snappy little condensation of the story. Kind of an overlooked gem.
Most of the heavy lifting is done by Buffalo Bob Smith, host of the "Howdy Doody" show and a pretty good singer.
From the Doodyville ranks we get Captain Windy Scuttlebutt as Scrooge. I would have thought that they would go with Phineas T. Bluster in the role, as he's their resident Scroogesque character, while Captain Scuttlebutt is relatively friendly.
I wonder if they just thought Captain Scuttlebutt's voice worked better, with which I'd agree. Or if we want to go meta, did Mr. Bluster refuse to do it, as his lack of Christmas spirit had previously been documented on the earlier "Howdy Doody's Christmas Party" record set?
In any event, the logical role for Howdy himself is Bob Cratchit, and indeed, that's his part here.
We also need a Tiny Tim, and Howdy's pal Dilly Dally has a fitting voice for the one line he gets.
Naturally I think it's awesome that they are billed on the record as performers playing parts!
Holding the whole thing together musically are the orchestra and chorus directed by Mitch Miller. He may have been a square, but he knew what he was doing and never phoned it in, no matter how big or small the project.
So, we have a lot of talent coming together to make a kiddie record that serves as a fun little blast from the past!
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