As mentioned in some of the donkey blogs, I love a good Christmas helper animal. What is that you may ask? Well, it's any creature who isn't a reindeer who helps Santa or Christmas in some way. Actually, I will correct myself, I do like some of the lesser known helper reindeer like twinkle toes, there are a few that are not including in the usual Santa eight plus Rudolph line up. Most of these creatures pop up in old novelty records from the 60's through the 80's and remind me of my childhood listening to them on a little record player. It's rare to find anyone making these kind of songs anymore.
If you go back through the older entries on this blog, it's obvious that donkeys are at the top of my helper list, but just below that is Harvey the Hippo.
Harvey the Hippo was recorded by Long John Silver and The Silver Elves in 1959. I tried to find some info on the band, but like most of these one off novelty records, there was very little out there. One of the commenters on the YouTube site did say the song was recorded by their father Jack Silverman, but I could find nothing to back this up. I'm not discrediting this person, I just don't have any information to back this.
The song is about a hippo who helps Santa one very snowy day. Old Harvey plows out the stable and reindeer runway so they can take off and deliver toys in time for Christmas. I like the idea that Santa has no snowplow at the North Pole, instead he has a hippoplowtamus! To many it adds to the magic of the Santa myth along with so many other characters found in songs and books.
I have to admit, I only recently discovered this song and it's amazing! Dominick used to be my favorite Christmas donkey, but little Burrito has moved into the number one spot!
"Burrito" was recorded by Don Lucas in 1962. I wasn't able to find a lot of info on Don, it looks like he has one other album to his name, an adult party record of some sort with mature themes. That's okay though Don, Burrito is all you ever needed to do.
Once again Santa needs the help of an animal other than his awesome flying reindeer to deliver toys in a country other than America. Why? No idea actually. Burrito is Santa's go to mode of transport in Mexico and instead of his sleigh, Santa loads all of the toys onto a wagon that Burrito pulls. Once again, seems really inefficient, but I guess Santa has reasons. Maybe the reindeer are in a union and this would violate their contract?
"Burrito" is a really fun and catchy song and Don Lucas does this awesome bray thing. His voice had to be so sore after word. I couldn't find the lyrics or a video to post, but trust me this song is so worth finding!
Dominick the Donkey is a Christmas song written by Ray Allen, Sam Saltzberg and Wandra Merrell, and was recorded by Lou Monte in 1960 on Roulette Records. In a later release of the song it was retitled "Dominic the Donkey". The song is about a donkey who delivers Christmas presents to the children in Italy because the reindeer are unable to climb the hills there. Sure it's silly but the song is really catchy with the chingedy chang chorus and Dominick's hee-haws.
I want to make it very clear, I love this song. However, there are questions. Why would flying reindeer need to climb hills at all? Couldn't they just fly over them? We all know the toy factory is in the North Pole so why is Dominick delivering items made in Brooklyn to the fine boy and girls of Italy? This whole thing doesn't seem legit. My best guess would be that the mob told Santa Italy was their territory and they have their own jolly fat man who uses a donkey to deliver their poorly made goods. Just a theory. Would love to hear yours.
Reindeer get a lot of praise and promotion around the Yule season. I'm guessing that's because they have really good publicists or may be doing "extra" work for the big guy. Oh...you know exactly what I'm talking about. "Extra" work. And that's why I am proudly dedicating the next few blogs to famous Christmas donkeys! They deserve the spotlight too!!
Let's start with Nestor. He appears in the 1977 Rankin-Bass holiday special "Nestor the Long-Eared Christmas Donkey". As some of you may be able to surmise....Nestor is born with very long ears, it may or may not (probably) have something to do with his name. Not to get too sidetracked, but in this snow blogger's humble opinion someone really should look into the high incidence of birth defects at the North Pole. I mean come on people!! There is a large elf (little people is the pc term by the way Santa) population, red nosed reindeer, flying reindeer, abominable snow men, long-eared donkey's, snowflake girls named Suzy, living snowmen...trust me, the list goes on and on. Santa's probably been dumping his rocket sled fuel near the stables and what not and should be ticketed!
In true Christmas special tradition, Nestor learns to over come his disability and accomplishes great things. I have to say though, if you are one of those emotional PETA types then you had best watch this special on ABC Family, it's currently aired there every year but is edited. That's right, a claymation style Christmas movie needs to be edited for today's mamby pamby audience. In 1977 people were made of tougher, more heartless stuff.
The special starts off showing how Nestor is made fun of by all of his donkey brethren because he constantly trips over his own ears. Why this guy can't tie them up top like a bun is beyond me. One fine evening after some weird pagan animal solstice celebration Roman soldiers come and demand donkeys for the emperor. They buy them all of them, but get angry when they realize Nestor is such a freak! Using this as an excuse they take their money back from the donkey salesman or whatever he is and take the donkeys anyway, all except Nestor. Well the donkey vendor is obviously angry because he now has no donkey crop and is left with Nestor. He picks Nestor up and whips him at the barn wall! Then this beast of a man picks up the donkey and throws him out of the barn where he ricochets off a tree and is left presumably dead!! Hardcore!! Nestor's mom isn't having this so she leaps out of her stable thingy and runs away. She finds Nestor, but a blizzard comes along. Mom covers Nestor with her body while the storm rages on. Cut to the next day or season,,it's not really clear...and mom is dead!! Nestor cries and is about to give up hope when a cherub tells him to sack up, there's a special mission for him. He must go to Bethlehem. Eventually Nestor ends up on the outskirts of Bethlehem, and is purchased by a certain Joseph and Mary. They need to get to Bethlehem proper because baby Jesus wants out in a major way. Suddenly a sandstorm comes and the trio are blinded. Nestor's moms ghost who is also the Cherub and possibly the spirit of God or an angel (you figure it out and let me know) starts to sing a song that only Nestor's big ears can hear. By following the song he quickly gets the young couple to a manger just in time for baby Jesus to be born and becomes a donkey hero!
The songs in this special were sung by Roger Miller. I don't really know him. According to Wikipedia he's won a few Grammy's and is in the country music hall of fame. Not too shabby. I really do like most of the music in this special. The theme song has been covered by Marty Robbins. There is also a funny Riff Trax version available on their web site.
The song "Don't laugh and make somebody cry" is edited out of the ABC Family version, possibly due to copyright restrictions or because it sucks. Some of the donkey abuse is gone from their broadcast version as well. I would recommend picking up the dvd version if you're a ghoul like me and want to see Nestor getting flung around or if you really enjoy the song "Don't laugh and make somebody cry". Nestor can be found either on the Warner Brother's release "The Year Without a Santa Claus" which has "Rudolph's Shiny New Year" and "Nestor the Long-Eared Christmas Donkey" as bonus features or it can also be found on a Warner Archives Collection dvd with the movie "The Life and Adventures of Santa Claus".
Marty Robbins version of Nestor's song with clips from movie
