Alvin and the Chipmunk Knock offs: The Singing Reindeer

 

Just when this series of posts had died it was brought back to life with a new discovery.  It's time to look at the fate of the next Alvin and the Chipmunks knock off.  You all know Dasher, Dancer, Prancer, and Vixen, Comet and Cupid,  Donder and Blitzen.  But do you recall, the most NERVOUS Reindeer of all????

With the success of Liberty Records scoring David Seville and the Three Chipmunks, you bet your boots the huge record company, Capitol Records, was paying attention.  During the holiday season of 1959, Capitol signed with Russ Regan to create singing reindeer.  The Singing Reindeer would be 3 of Santa's reindeer: Dancer, Prancer, and a new member of the Reindeer Games, Nervous.  Nervous would be the easiest to identify because of his stutter. Interestingly enough, Nervous would make reference to Don Knotts before he was Barney Fife when he was best known as The Nervous Man. This made Nervous the main character of the gang just like Alvin was with the Chipmunks.  Already this was well established who these characters are.

Their first song came out in 1959 called The Happy Reindeer.  This begins confusion as to whether they were called The Happy Reindeer, The Singing Reindeer, or both.  However, the records labeled them as The Singing Reindeer with their first 45rpm stating "Dancer, Prancer, and Nervous the Singing Reindeer".  While not as popular as the Chipmunks, The Happy Reindeer did hit the top 40 charts that year.  One thing that was different than the Chipmunks was the speed of their voices.  The voices were only sped up about 15% similar to how Mel Blanc's voices were sped up.  However, the same type of Saxophone like music used in the Chipmunks are used here making it very obvious it was competing against Liberty.  Thus, they weren't as high pitched, but good enough for Capitol to promote.  Not long after, Ross Bagdasarian, creator of The Chipmunks, took a stab at them by making a single of Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer sung by the Chipmunks and Rudolph would too have the same speed and voice like Nervous.  Could this have been the only legit competition of the three singing chipmunks?  Who knows.

And promote The Happy Reindeer Capitol did.  An animated music video was made to help promote the song and was sent out to local TV stations (more on that later) and what's more, Capitol had a pay for play promotion using Nervous to introduce specific segments before tossing to the on air DJ.  These include weather, time, days until Christmas, and a Christmas greeting.  

The success of The Happy Reindeer led to another 45rpm.  This time it's The Happy Birthday Song.  This was an original song, and it was in no way a Christmas Song despite being sung by The Singing Reindeer.  And like The Happy Reindeer, it too had an animated music video.  The song itself did not sell well.  However, local TV stations kept this one alive in some parts of the country thanks to local kids shows using this as a way to introduce who's birthday it is today.  The best example of this is WGAL 8 in Lancaster who used this all the time of their local kiddie show, Percy the Platypus.  While most of its appearances were local, Captain Kangaroo did air this cartoon in the 60's.  

The two animated segments pre-date The Alvin Show by a couple of years, though this would not be an animated show or series like Alvin or even The Nutty Squirrels, but unlike The Nutty Squirrels, the animation style is very similar to The Alvin Show.  Simple backgrounds, UPA style limited animation, and completely animated to the original tracks.  However, the designs were different each time.  It is unknown who animated these.  It could have been known on the only copy out there of The Happy Reindeer, but the time code hides it.  It's also assumed both were made in color, but the only copy of The Happy Birthday Song is a black and white Kinescope of Percy the Platypus (or potentially another show).  

After a while, kids shows were starting to see their demise by the late 1960's due to changes in children's television.  This would also lead to the end of Percy Platypus by 1974.  The Happy Reindeer may have already been obscure by then, but The Happy Birthday Song would still have been remembered, even if that's all it would be.  With each passing year, The Singing Reindeer would become more of a distant memory of the past as the birthday segment and the song had not been shown widespread since the late 60's early 1970's.  Just like most of the knock offs, The Singing Reindeer would fall into obscurity with only memories from those who grew up watching shows like Percy the Platypus.  It seems as though Dancer, Prancer, and Nervous would continue to be long forgotten....................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................And then......THIS happens:

John......Susan.....Charles.....Rosemary........Sophie

In 2020, a Youtube series of videos titled The Walton Files were released.  This fan made project was inspired by the hit game Five Nights at Freddy's.  In it, a bunch of tapes have been "discovered" by someone about a very short lived place called Bun's Burgers.  This would have incorporated the same aspects of Chuck E Cheese, but something went horribly wrong causing so many disappearances, but we know from watching these tapes that there was more than meets the eye.  I won't go into too much detail since this is not what this post is about, but along the way, a worker named Ashley finds a clown animatronic and a tape reading 06/11/74  DISCARD.  She puts the tape in, and the animatronic begins to perform.  The track on the tape appears to be warn out but seems to be the birthday song for the closed restaurant giving creepy vibes already for being so old but then it glitches and began listing some names: John, Susan, Charles, Rosemary, and Sophie...all are victims of these disappearances except Sophie who is supposed to be a victim.  This frightens Ashley which in turn, she meets up with the Bun animatronic leading to her gruesome demise.  

With The Walton Files being popular to the horror Youtube community, creator Martin Walls began uploading an official sound track to the series.  One of these tracks is the uncanny birthday song heard before Ashley's death in its entirety.  Fans began to speculate it the creator himself made this to make it sound old and worn and used from a long gone family fun center or did he use some other source.  Sure enough, not only would it be the latter, it would exactly be The Happy Birthday Song by The Singing Reindeer.  Somehow, someway, Martin must have found this looking for a generic birthday song that sounded like something those animatronics would sing, took it, slowed down the pitch slightly, then mixed it into the video.  Immediately upon notice of this, fans began going toward these videos on Youtube of The Happy Birthday Song, listening to it, and then commenting on them.  While boomers who grew up with this began recalling fond memories of Percy the Platypus, millennials began to comment and in some cases trolled the comments with references to the infamous scene in The Walton Files including listing the names the tape lists.  The result....a rediscovery.  A new chapter to the lives of The Singing Reindeer.  Even I never heard of this until watching The Walton Files and me getting curious about the song since it gave an eerie nostalgia to it.  Only to find out it was made to compete against the Chipmunks years ago, I had to write this entry to tell the real story that is more than just another Walton Files reference.

Which brings us to the end......from singles released on records to being a staple of local TV stations in some regions of the country to being forgotten and then....ultimately....a piece of Youtube Horror.  Something old and forgotten is once more brand new.  If you are into horror, I must say The Walton Files is one of the most scariest things I've seen in a long time.  Probably scarier than Five Nights at Freddy's because it's not jumpscare after jumpscare...it's unsettling horror knowing something is going to go horribly wrong using the art of analog horror, and it works really well.  As for Dancer, Prancer, and Nervous the Reindeer, well it's interesting to see something old and nostalgic from both kiddie records and children's shows' history and while not widespread is long remembered to help celebrate birthdays and Christmas.  So let's listen to The Happy Birthday Song one more time: