Jingle Bells (Batman Smells): An incomplete festive folk-rhyme taxonomy | Hacker News Reader

Jingle Bells (Batman Smells): An incomplete festive folk-rhyme taxonomy

loreandordure.com

121 pointshelsinkiandrew62 comments

Advanced 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!!!"

I’m guessing the missing part probably ended with an internal rhyme for “man”. Maybe “missed the can” (she was aiming at)?

Could 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!

The 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.

The redneck version that I heard as a kid was way worse than that. Things I won’t repeat…

Must have been other Grandma, since Santa Claus killed Grandma in a hit-and-run. Revenge maybe?

There's also corrupted versions in other languages than English! I'm from Portugal and there's also semi-bawdy lyrics that somehow spread across the country organically across hundreds of miles.

Tom 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 - Tom Scott, 'I Asked 64,182 People About “Jingle Bells, Batman Smells”. Here's What I Found Out.'

Yeah the Tom Scott video is based on significantly more data. Seems weird that this person wouldn't have found it when researching this topic.

Thank 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.

"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.

We 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.

I 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.

Same. I was singing this in the very early 80's, if not late 70's.

Tangent - Monktoberfest 2016: Bryan Cantrill - Oral Tradition in Software Engineering 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 ...

My 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!

I 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.

Edit:

Robin laid an egg. Batmobile lost its wheel and the commissioner broke his leg...I think.

Does "While Shepherds Washed their Socks by Night" count?

While 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'

I’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.

I know this as "when Shepherds washed their socks by night."

How 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!")*

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://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OlvxvSDOrAA

I 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_n...

It'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.

RING 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.tex...

I think I found, and memorized, that about 25 years ago. There was a list of other songs in the file too.

Yes, 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....

There 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-k...

From this guy's page: 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/BardSongsNetBo...

Nothing about Jack Frost or "ripping", unfortunately.

Growing 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.

Growing 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?

We 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.

Someone should tell the author that Robin laying an egg is the source of Batman's smell.

Huh, 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.

The egg is canon. Joker sings this version in the BtAS Christmas episode.

https://youtu.be/DpV9f4Tv8kA?feature=shared

All 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

A classic: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_XU6zrGyUUo

Does 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

It 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."

There’s probably not too many folks here, that even remember that show.

R.I.P. Meathead

I wonder how those subtitles were made.

Reminds me of the “Misheard Joe Cocker Lyrics” video: https://vimeo.com/448217206

fwiw, 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)

I only know the Tay from the poem:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Tay_Bridge_Disaster

Hopefully I'll get to see it sometime.

Never 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.

It’s almost striking to read something not written by AI

from The Carols of Halloween - 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

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