Hello Muddah, Hello Fadduh
| "Hello Mother, Hello Father (A Letter from Camp)" | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Single by Allan Sherman | ||||
| from the album My Son, the Nut | ||||
| B-side | "(Rag Mop) Rat Fink" | |||
| Released | August 1963 | |||
| Genre | Novelty song | |||
| Length | 2:47 | |||
| Label | Arista Records 0389 | |||
| Writer(s) | Allan Sherman, Lou Busch | |||
| Producer | Jimmy Hilliard | |||
| Allan Sherman singles chronology | ||||
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"Hello Muddah, Hello Fadduh (A Letter from Camp)" is a Grammy Award-winning novelty song by Allan Sherman and Lou Busch, based on letters of complaint Allan received from his son Robert while Robert attended Camp Champlain in Westport, New York.[1] The song is a parody that complains about the fictional "Camp Granada" and is set to the tune of Amilcare Ponchielli's "Dance of the Hours". The name derives from the first lines:
- Hello Muddah,
Hello Fadduh.
Here I am at
Camp Granada.
Camp is very
entertaining.
And they say we'll have some fun if it stops raining.
The lyrics go on to describe more and more strange and weird incidents, including campers being lost and never found again, and an incident of food poisoning. At the end of the letter, once the rain stops and the kid can go outside, he tells his father to forget everything he said, implying he was wildly exaggerating everything in order to go home or as a release from boredom in not being able to go out during the rain.
After the song scored #2 on the Billboard Hot 100 list for three weeks beginning August 24, 1963, Sherman wrote a new 'back at Camp Granada' version, "Hello Mudduh, Hello Fadduh!",[2] for a May 27, 1964 performance on the The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson. Sherman wrote a third version for, and acted in, a 1965 TV commercial for a board game about Camp Granada, a "real rotten camp".[3]
The song won a 1964 Grammy Award for comedy. The song has been played numerous times on the Dr. Demento Show and is featured on the Rhino Records compilation album, Dr. Demento 20th Anniversary Collection. Variations of the song include translations in Swedish ("Brev från kolonien" by Cornelis Vreeswijk), Finnish and Norwegian, ("Brev fra leier'n" by Birgit Strøm).
See also [edit]
- Camp Runamuck, The 1965-66 sitcom loosely inspired by the song
- Camp Granada, a 1965 board game inspired by the song
- Hello Muddah, Hello Faddah! (book), a 2004 children's book based on the song
- Hello Muddah, Hello Fuddah! (musical), a musical revue inspired by the song
References and notes [edit]
- ^ Paul Lieberman (August 16, 2003). "The Boy in Camp Granada". Lifestyle. LA Times. Retrieved 2008-02-09.
NOTE: Sherman's son, Robert (born 1949) was dismissed from Camp Champlain. - ^ Hello Mudduh, Hello Fadduh!
- ^ "LikeTelevision - Camp Granada by Milton Bradley". liketelevision ...only better. LikeTelevision. Retrieved 2008-02-09.
External links [edit]
- Hear the song at Alan Sherman Radio Accessed October 2009
| Preceded by The First Family (album) by Vaughn Meader |
Grammy Award for Best Comedy Performance 1964 |
Succeeded by I Started Out as a Child by Bill Cosby |
