Green Chri$tma$
Green Chri$tma$ is a radio play written and performed by Stan Freberg and Daws Butler and released by Capitol Records in 1958 (catalog number F 4097). Musical arrangement and direction by Billy May, performed by the Capitol Records house orchestra. Other vocal performances by Marvin Miller, Will Wright and the Jud Conlon Chorale.
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[edit] Plot
Mr. Scrooge (Freberg), the head of an unnamed advertising agency, has gathered a group of clients to discuss tying their products into Christmas. One attendee, Bob Cratchit (Butler), wants to resist tying his spice company into Christmas, preferring to send Christmas cards with a simple message of "Peace on Earth." Scrooge extols the virtues of making money off of Christmas, including an over-the-top medley of parodies of popular Christmas songs entitled "Deck the Halls with Advertising" that includes an advertisement for "Tyn-E-Tim Chestnuts" that closely parallels a cigarette advertisement. Cratchit counters by reminding Scrooge "whose birthday we're celebrating."
[edit] Message
The piece is a scathing indictment of the commercialization of Christmas, with references of Christmas-themed advertising by Coca-Cola and Marlboro cigarettes, among others. The names of the characters are taken from A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens, as is one of the products "advertised" ("Tyn-E-Tim Chestnuts"). Green Chri$tma$ also contains a parody of the Christmas carol The Twelve Days of Christmas and an original song by Freberg, Christmas Comes but Once a Year.
[edit] Release
At first, Capitol Records refused to release the record. Lloyd Dunn, the president of Capitol, told Freberg the record was offensive to everybody in advertising, and predicted Freberg would never work in advertising again. Freberg responded with his intent to cancel his entire recording contract with Capitol. He spoke to a contact at Verve Records, and the company offered to release the record without even hearing it. Faced with this, Capitol finally released it, but with no promotion or publicity.
[edit] Initial Reception
The record was attacked in advertising trade magazines. It was played only twice in New York by one disc jockey, and the station's sales department threatened to have him fired if he played it again. KMPC in Los Angeles played the record, but some advertisers required that their ads be scheduled more than fifteen minutes away from it. An editorial in the Los Angeles Times condemned it, but the author later admitted he hadn't listened to it. Similarly, Robert Wood (then station manager of KCBS-TV in Los Angeles, later president of CBS), told Freberg the record was "sacrilegious" and he didn't need to hear it because he had read about it. KRLA, Pasadena (Freberg's hometown) showed it as reaching #3 in popularity in their printed survey. It is unclear whether this was based on sales or airplay.
Station KFWB, then known as "Color Radio Channel 98" also kept on playing Green Chri$tma$. KFI, then the Earl C. Anthony station, played it a few times and then discontinued as did many other stations because of reaction from the advertising community.
However, the mail Freberg received from the public, including Christian clergy and rabbis, was overwhelmingly positive.
[edit] Aftermath
Within six months, Coca-Cola and Marlboro, both recognizably satirized in the record without being named, asked Freberg for advertising campaigns. He turned down Marlboro, but he created a campaign for Coca-Cola that was very successful.
[edit] Rebroadcast/Rerelease
Of especially noteworthy importance is the impact of this song's message in the heart of corporate America, as reflected in the fact that it received no commercial AM radio airplay until 1983; only getting a little FM airplay before that (such as on the Doctor Demento Show) and only slightly more AM airtime after 1983. Beginning in 1972, Capitol reissued the single as catalog number 3503, dividing the piece into two parts; it remained in the Christmas singles section of record stores for years thereafter. It can currently be found on Dr. Demento Presents the Greatest Christmas Novelty CD of All Time (1989).
[edit] References
- Freberg, Stan (1988). It Only Hurts When I Laugh. Times Books. ISBN 0812912977.
- Mirtle, Jack (1998). The Music of Billy May: A Discography. Greenwood Press. ISBN 9780313307393.
Some AM Radio stations did play Green Chri$tma$ in the early 1970s. It was re-released at least to the radio stations in 1972 or 1973 in a 45rpm format with one side of the record being the first half and the flip side being the second half. The actual work is about 6 and a half minutes in length. So, this re-release created two smaller selections. Some record stores also had this version of the song being divided in two sections.
