If you don't have a bird pun in that line, you're missing out

December 23, 2021 9:00 AM

Tom Scott Asked 64,182 People About “Jingle Bells, Batman Smells”. Here's What He Found Out. (SLYT)
posted by ChurchHatesTucker (73 comments total)

Grew up in Southern California in the 70s and the "Robin laid and egg" version is the only one I ever knew.
posted by brookeb at 9:20 AM on December 23, 2021 [5 favorites]

The version on the Simpsons is the one I grew up with in Connecticut, 1980s.
posted by migurski at 9:22 AM on December 23, 2021 [4 favorites]

I grew up with the Simpsons version in northern British Columbia in the 1980s.

The other variation is on the end of the song. I've heard both

"Batmobile lost a wheel and the Joker got away" and
"Batmobile lost a wheel and the Joker took ballet."
posted by synecdoche at 9:29 AM on December 23, 2021 [4 favorites]

Grew up hearing it in 70s/80s southeastern USA. With Batmobile and Joker in the mix
posted by Liquidwolf at 9:30 AM on December 23, 2021

I heard both "Joker got away" and "Commissioner broke his leg" last lines as a kid. The second one's scansion issue was offset by actually rhyming with "egg".
posted by Greg_Ace at 9:38 AM on December 23, 2021 [1 favorite]

I guess I grew up in the pre-television era…

Jingle bells, Santa smells,
Easter’s on its way,
Of what fun it is to ride
In a rundown Chevrolet.
posted by njohnson23 at 9:38 AM on December 23, 2021 [4 favorites]

Wow! I’d love to see the map of “What you call ‘tag’” in the UK overlaid on the kingdoms of the c.10th
posted by stanf at 9:48 AM on December 23, 2021 [8 favorites]

East coast US in the 60s & 70s - I actually think I remember learning that song on the school bus in 2nd grade - and it was always Robin laid an egg.
posted by mygothlaundry at 9:51 AM on December 23, 2021 [4 favorites]

In Minnesota in the 80s it was always the Simpsons version but with the bird puns already in there I'm a bit surprised we didn't fit a grey duck in somehow.

Of course there were variations, but the hypothesis of The Simpsons having the power to make one default vs. using the default one in the show doesn't seem very cromulent. There is no way a show could embiggen our cultural vocabulary on that broad of a scale.
posted by Clinging to the Wreckage at 9:51 AM on December 23, 2021 [13 favorites]

Victoria, Australia, primary school ended 1973.

Jingle bells, Batman smells,
Robin ran away,
The Batmobile lost a wheel
Coming down the hill.
posted by flabdablet at 9:52 AM on December 23, 2021

I guess I heard this growing up in Maine in the 70's, but I have stronger memories of "Jingle bells, Santa smells, a hundred miles away".
posted by jkent at 9:53 AM on December 23, 2021

Boston burbs, born in 1969.

Jingle bells, Batman smells
Robin laid an egg
The Batmobile, lost a wheel
and the penguin got awayyyyy... HEY!

Repeat until dad hollers at you.
posted by bondcliff at 9:53 AM on December 23, 2021 [9 favorites]

Watching the whole video, the "laid an egg" version definitely predated the Simpsons in the US (and probably most of Canada - certainly we had it in Toronto in the mid-80s). But it's really neat how he can demonstrate the "Simpson's effect" on UK children as they went from UK to US and back again.

The other version I knew (the one that we didn't sing near our parents) always struck me as an insightful (albeit bloody) criticism of Christmas commercialism:

"Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells,
Santa Claus is dead!
GI Joe, GI Joe, shot him in the head, hey!

Mrs. Claus, Mrs. Claus,
tried to save his life
But Barbie doll, Barbie doll,
stabbed her with a knife!"
posted by jb at 9:59 AM on December 23, 2021 [8 favorites]

grew up in PacNW in the 70s and 80s and the simpsons version is what i grew up singing.

then again, Matt Groening is from here, so.
posted by hollisimo at 10:00 AM on December 23, 2021 [4 favorites]

I actually think I was exactly the right age/location (1983, London, the game is called "it") that people debated this in the schoolyard! V possible this is an invented memory from watching the video but I distantly remember being uneasy with the new/fresh "Robin laid an egg" line - we didn't have the sense of 'laid an egg' meaning "performed badly" so it seemed uncomfortably sexual (which is the point, I suppose!)

Thank you for posting this.
posted by wattle at 10:04 AM on December 23, 2021 [1 favorite]

The Simpsons one is the only one I remember (The South, 1980s). Asked a person from Central England (1980s, M) (who has only lived in England) and he ended it with 'Batman lost a wheel on the motorway' but he also heard the Robin flew away one.
posted by Ms. Moonlight at 10:06 AM on December 23, 2021

Two versions from suburban Maryland, late 60s-early 70s. The first has the bits commonly in the responses, both in the video and here:

Jingle bells, Batman smells,
Robin laid an egg
Batmobile lost a wheel
And the commissioner broke his leg.

However, we also had this, which is curiously timely (again):

Jingle bells, Batman smells
A hundred miles away
Better get your cootie shot
Before he comes this way.
posted by datawrangler at 10:07 AM on December 23, 2021 [2 favorites]

I think my default version is actually A-Team rather than Batman:

Jingle Bells, Hannibal smells,
Murdoch flew away,
Face took off his smelly socks
And threw them at BA

I’d go with the Robin flew away version too, but I’m not sure if I’m not just transposing it? (Irish and 80s kid)
posted by scorbet at 10:09 AM on December 23, 2021 [5 favorites]

Also: chasey or tiggie. Wouldn't have known what "tag" was as a kid; tags were things found on clothing and mattresses.
posted by flabdablet at 10:17 AM on December 23, 2021 [1 favorite]

1982, English suburbs of Montreal, and I was amused that "Joker did ballet" is a particularly Canadian variant - my school had both "Joker got away" and "Joker did ballet." (This was before the Simpsons episode, in 1991-1992-ish.)
posted by Jeanne at 10:25 AM on December 23, 2021 [2 favorites]

Jingle bells, Batman smells
Robin laid an egg
Batmobile popped a wheel
and the Joker got awayyyyy... HEY!

Chicago, born 1970
posted by SoberHighland at 10:28 AM on December 23, 2021 [2 favorites]

I too remember the "Joker got away" version (mid-late 80s), though iirc, my younger (by four years) sister would later sing the "Joker took ballet" one, which confused me at the time.

jb, the version of the "Santa Claus is Dead" variation I remember is slightly different, with Barbie Doll trying to save Santa's life, and Teddy Bear doing the stabbing.
posted by May Kasahara at 10:33 AM on December 23, 2021

@SoberHighland Chicago, 1975 here, and that's the version I learned.
posted by me3dia at 10:41 AM on December 23, 2021

TX in the late 90s/early 2000s (but I may have learned this from my cousins in AZ, and granted, i haven't watched the video but I still have not met anyone else who uses the line I do)

Jingle bells, Batman smells
Robin laid an egg
Mr. Freeze cut the cheese
And Joker got away, hey!
posted by scruffy-looking nerfherder at 10:49 AM on December 23, 2021 [4 favorites]

I've always heard "Robin laid an egg".

I'm certain that it's included in Duncan Emrich's The Nonsense Book from 1971 or perhaps The Hodgepodge Book from 1972. Both were some of my favorite books to find in the on-base libraries when my father was in the Air Force. But in flipping through my copies, (which I have, of course!) I can't find it in there. Perhaps it's in The Whim-Wham Book which I have arund here somewhere. Perhaps it was in an issue of Dynamite magazine. I seem to recall seeing it with an illustration.
posted by Catblack at 10:50 AM on December 23, 2021

Toronto, and I grew up with the same versions as synchdoche in the mid-80s to the 90s. The stabby one seems familiar, but not enough that I could recite the lyrics by heart. Perhaps I wasn't cool enough for the other kids to sing it in earshot.

Now let's do It Was Sad When The Great Ship Went Down (glug glug glug), because I want to find out what the S.S. Ninety-Two was originally.
posted by giltay at 10:57 AM on December 23, 2021 [1 favorite]

My daughter came back from nursery school with "Jingle Bell, Batman smells, Robin flew away, the Batmobile lost a wheel on the uncle motorway". 6 years on we have not been able to work out what "uncle motorway" actually was.
posted by kumonoi at 11:13 AM on December 23, 2021 [1 favorite]

Mr. Freeze cut the cheese

Man, I can't remember the last time I heard someone use the phrase "cut the cheese". It has to have been over 40 years ago.
posted by Greg_Ace at 11:14 AM on December 23, 2021 [4 favorites]

giltay: I bet it was the Titanic. There was a Girl Scout camp song about the Titanic -- "Husbands and wives, little children lost their lives, it was sad when that great ship went down." The song wasn't all that sad, despite the lyrics. (I did not hear this at camp myself, but it was out there.)
posted by Countess Elena at 11:16 AM on December 23, 2021 [3 favorites]

Now let's do It Was Sad When The Great Ship Went Down (glug glug glug), because I want to find out what the S.S. Ninety-Two was originally.

That's a new one for me.

After that, let's add "Abraham Lincoln was a fine/good old man" with a "walked out the door" / "jumped out the window" split to look for a 1989 2 Live Crew effect. Assuming everyone heard a dozen versions of it on the playground as I did.
posted by eotvos at 11:23 AM on December 23, 2021

Yeah, the Great Ship song started as this serious topical folk song about the Titanic and then degenrated ("uncles and aunts, little children lost their pants...")
posted by nebulawindphone at 11:28 AM on December 23, 2021 [1 favorite]

As for the racist versions, I grew up in the southern U.S. and the version I remember goes something like

Jingle Bells
Batman Smells
Granny got her gun,

Then there are some really bad, racist lines I won't repeat here but yes, they involve the n-word, how did you know.
posted by zardoz at 11:37 AM on December 23, 2021 [3 favorites]

By the way, the books by Iona and Peter Opie, that he mentions:

Children's Games in Street and Playground 1969
Lore and Language of School Children 1959

are fantastic. Children's folklore, collected all over the UK. And surprisingly, you can find stuff you knew when you were a kid. I was a kid in Illinois and California, and there was stuff I knew in there, including Gooshy Gushy Gopher Guts! Children may be monsters, as he says, but quite creative monsters.
posted by njohnson23 at 11:39 AM on December 23, 2021 [2 favorites]

Countess Elena: The first two stanzas were about the Titanic, but the third verse went:

So they built another ship, called the S.S. 92
And they thought they had a ship that the water wouldn't go through
But they christened it with beer and it sank right off the pier
It was sa-ad when the grea-eat ship went down

I've found the original (serious) lyrics (first published in 1927 but certainly older (Wikipedia)), and I've found some versions of the parody including the SS 92 verse, but I don't know where it came from or if it's a reference to anything. There are similar versions with "Titanic II", "SS 42", and "SS Mary Jane", so it's probably a descedant of one of those but I've always wondered why 92 in particular.
posted by giltay at 11:40 AM on December 23, 2021 [2 favorites]

In the video, Tom Scott seems to make reference to The Secret True History Of 'Jingle Bells, Batman Smells' from cracked.com. I found it because I wanted to try Googling whether the song actually appeared in the 1960's Batman TV show--doesn't it seem like something the Joker would have left on a 45 for Batman to listen to? Well, the article says

Several commenters had mentioned the original Batman show as a likely point of origin for "Jingle Bells, Batman Smells," but as far as I can tell the Batmanized version never made it onto the show.

While Tom Scott talks about Robert Goulet singing the song on the Simpsons, Cracked pointed out something I'd forgotten--Bart sings it in the very first episode of the Simpsons from 1989. It was also the only true and correct version in that episode.

Also, the earliest printed version they found, from 1967, ends with "The Commissioner's stuck in a sleigh". WTF? No wonder that one didn't stick around.

To zardoz's point, the article ends with discussion of how "Jingle Bells" was used in both sides in the 1960s Civil Rights struggle.
posted by polecat at 11:40 AM on December 23, 2021 [2 favorites]

We had
....Robin flew away
Kojak lost his lollipop
And found the Milky Way

Greater Manchester, 80s, CofE primary.
posted by runincircles at 12:20 PM on December 23, 2021 [2 favorites]

While shepherds washed their socks by night
all seated round the tub
The angel of the Lord came down
And said let's go to the pub

may be opening up a whole other can of worms....
posted by runincircles at 12:21 PM on December 23, 2021 [11 favorites]

We also had the Kojak one... Cornwall, late 70s.
posted by pipeski at 12:22 PM on December 23, 2021 [1 favorite]

I love this video. I grew up in Michigan singing "Robin laid an egg", but I remember a relative insisting the correct lyrics were "Robin ran away," possibly my mother. None of us are from the UK FWIW.

Can I also note that the American version of the song also appears in "Christmas with the Joker" from the first season of Batman the Animated Series, from 1992? This only slightly predates the Simpsons reference and could be another likely smaller influence, though I don't know when/how that show was distributed internationally. And now I'm also wondering how that line was translated for dubbed versions. Hmm.
posted by Tesseractive at 12:35 PM on December 23, 2021 [2 favorites]

Concurrent-ish with the Simpsons, Batman: The Animated Series also had a rendition.

Jingle Bells, Batman Smells
Robin Laid an Egg,
the Batmobile lost a wheel,
And the Joker got away

Crashing through the roof,
In a one horse open sleigh,
Busting out I go,
Laughing all the- Whee~

posted by Orange Pamplemousse at 1:10 PM on December 23, 2021 [1 favorite]

Oops, sorry Tesseractive!
posted by Orange Pamplemousse at 1:11 PM on December 23, 2021

Italian Cartoon Network mid 90 sang the Mark Hamilton version in in English as their Xmas transition, and then modified it threw the years
posted by thegirlwiththehat at 1:16 PM on December 23, 2021 [1 favorite]

While North America may be a homogenous mass when it comes to what we call 'tag', ask people what they call sugary carbonated drinks and you are in for a brouhaha.
posted by Shepherd at 1:45 PM on December 23, 2021 [4 favorites]

Also from greater Boston in the sixties, and Bondcliff’s version was all we knew. I like using Penguin instead of Joker for the ornithological consistency with Robin.
posted by carmicha at 1:54 PM on December 23, 2021 [2 favorites]

Also: chasey or tiggie. Wouldn't have known what "tag" was as a kid; tags were things found on clothing and mattresses.

What did 'it' say when they touched someone else?

I grew up in Michigan singing "Robin laid an egg", but I remember a relative insisting the correct lyrics were "Robin ran away," possibly my mother.

That would make sense. The earliest version appears to be 'ran away', according to the Cracked article linked by polecat. It's curious that the 'laid an egg' version so quickly and (for the most part) thoroughly replaced it in the States. (It's the version I learned in the mid seventies.)
posted by ChurchHatesTucker at 2:00 PM on December 23, 2021

I’ll sign on to bondcliff’s version and note that it was definitely understood that Robin’s “egg” was a mighty and terrible fart.
posted by janell at 2:02 PM on December 23, 2021 [3 favorites]

ask people what they call sugary carbonated drinks and you are in for a brouhaha.

I've never heard anyone call one a "brouhaha".
posted by Greg_Ace at 2:05 PM on December 23, 2021 [6 favorites]

metafilter: I've never heard anyone call one a "brouhaha".
posted by Catblack at 2:07 PM on December 23, 2021 [1 favorite]

While shepherds washed their socks by night
all seated round the tub
The angel of the Lord came down
And said let's go to the pub

I remember this as "and showed them how to scrub".

I see in the video he does mention the version involving Wonder Woman losing her bosom. I heard that verson as a child, in the mid '70s (though without the TAA reference) and didn't know what the word meant. So I asked my mother, and she was quite cross about it, as I recall.
posted by Sparx at 2:12 PM on December 23, 2021

The earliest alternative version I remember (Western Maryland, I would have been 8 in the early '80s) wasn't a Batman.

Jingle bells, shotgun shells,
Santa Claus is dead.
Daddy took a twenty-two
And shot him in the head.

Usually followed by some kid arguing that a .22 isn't really powerful enough to kill Santa, but no mention of the fact that that's not even a shotgun to begin with.
posted by Mister Moofoo at 2:14 PM on December 23, 2021 [1 favorite]

My daughter came back from nursery school with "Jingle Bell, Batman smells, Robin flew away, the Batmobile lost a wheel on the uncle motorway". 6 years on we have not been able to work out what "uncle motorway" actually was.

We sang the exact same thing (northern England, 1980s), except the mishap took place on the "M1 motorway." Kids aren't all that bothered about the precise labelling of even very major arterial roads, those syllables could drift a lot over time.

We had a much cruder second verse too, I recall being told off for singing it, but sadly I can't recall a word; it's sad, all the important memories from childhood slip away, and you're left with just your seven times table and that eternal incandescent hatred of Mrs Calder the year 1 teacher.
posted by tomsk at 2:51 PM on December 23, 2021 [1 favorite]

While shepherds washed their socks by night
all watching BBC
The angel of the Lord came down
And switched to ITV

...was how that one went in my neck of the woods.
posted by pipeski at 3:01 PM on December 23, 2021 [1 favorite]

Also...

Jesus Christ, Superstar
Riding down the road on a Yamaha...

I forget the rest, but it was probably filthy, given that I was at a Catholic school.
posted by pipeski at 3:02 PM on December 23, 2021 [3 favorites]

giltay: I bet it was the Titanic. There was a Girl Scout camp song about the Titanic -- "Husbands and wives, little children lost their lives, it was sad when that great ship went down." The song wasn't all that sad, despite the lyrics. (I did not hear this at camp myself, but it was out there.)

I learned this one from my mom, who learned it from friends at church camp, but also the campers sometimes swapped this line out with "there were uncles and aunts, little children lost their pants," I think to appease a counselor who thought that singing about little children losing their lives was just excessively crass, even for a novelty song about the Titanic.
posted by naoko at 3:30 PM on December 23, 2021 [1 favorite]

Huh. Ours (70s, north TX) was "Joker stole the Batmobile and the Penguin got away, hey!"
posted by emjaybee at 3:54 PM on December 23, 2021

New Jersey, mid-70s. Robin laid an egg, the Joker got away, and Jesus Christ was riding down the road in a stolen car.
posted by mollweide at 4:38 PM on December 23, 2021 [1 favorite]

Y'all need an introduction to Lady Mondegreen
posted by achrise at 4:47 PM on December 23, 2021

No, not "calm down", Alfred! Did you hear what they were singin'? "Jingle Bells, Batman. Smells!" That's not the original lyric! They wrote that to hurt my feelings!-- James Acaster "Unlikely Things to Hear at Christmastime, Mock The Week, 2016.
posted by dannyboybell at 6:19 PM on December 23, 2021

I was talking about this song with some friends of mine last night, one of whom is an anthropologist. I think it a remarkable example of Kid Culture. I heard some kids on a playground when I was nearly fifty, some 400 km from where I grew up, singing fundamentally the same song I had forty years earlier. I suppose its occasional appearances in pop culture muddy the waters a bit, but I thought it amazing that this is generally speaking a thing that kids have taught other kids, with no adults involved.

That and the eternal house rules for Monopoly.
posted by ricochet biscuit at 7:50 PM on December 23, 2021 [2 favorites]

I presume at some point he's going to cover the "Miss Suzy" song, for the same reasons minus The Simpsons?
posted by jenfullmoon at 8:05 PM on December 23, 2021 [2 favorites]

What did 'it' say when they touched someone else?

"You're he"
posted by flabdablet at 8:10 PM on December 23, 2021 [4 favorites]

As shepherd's washed their socks by night
All seated around the tub
A bar of sunlight soap came down
And they began to scrub.

Though I think I might have learned that from my dad rather than in the playground.
posted by hfnuala at 4:17 AM on December 24, 2021

...
One in a taxi, one in a car,
One on a scooter, beeping his hooter,
All off to see grandma.
posted by polytope subirb enby-of-piano-dice at 4:33 AM on December 24, 2021

Canton Ohio, mid 1960's: laid an egg, lost a wheel but I'm not sure what the next line was. I don't think there was a "dashing through the snow" part.
posted by lordrunningclam at 5:41 AM on December 24, 2021

Ooh, ooh: "McDonald's is my kind of place..."
(SF Bay Area, early '70s)
posted by aquanaut at 8:31 AM on December 24, 2021

"McDonald's is my kind of place..."

They serve you rattlesnakes
They stuff them in your face
There is no parking space
Last time that I was there
They stole my underwear
McDonald's is my kiiiind ooof plaaaace


And now that you've got me thinking about other kid's songs... (to the tune of Col. Bogey March):

Comet, it tastes like kerosene
Comet, it makes your face turn green
Comet, it makes you vomit
So get your Comet, and vomit, today

(kids, don't eat household cleaning products!)
posted by Greg_Ace at 10:33 AM on December 24, 2021 [1 favorite]

I remember Comet tasting like gasoline, but the rest matching Greg_Ace. This would be late 60s in Michigan.
posted by rfs at 12:54 PM on December 24, 2021 [2 favorites]

Cool!
Now do 'the Burning of the School'. (sung to the tune of Battle Hymn of the Republic)

Mine eyes have seen the glory of
the Burning of the School,
We have tortured the Headmaster,
and we've broken every rule.
We are coming for the coaches,
and the secretaries too,
Our troops are marching on!

Glory, glory, hallelujah,
Teacher hit me with a ruler.
So I bopped her on the bean
with a rotten tangerine
'Cause that's not allowed in schooool!
posted by bartleby at 1:49 PM on December 24, 2021 [2 favorites]

So I bopped her on the bean
with a rotten tangerine
'Cause that's not allowed in schooool!

Met her at the door
With a loaded 44
And she ain't my teacher no more!

(1970s rural New Hampshire, don't know why we were so hardcore)

We also had
"This land is my land, it is not your land
I got a shotgun and you don't got one
If you don't get off, I'll blow your head off
This land is private property!"
posted by Daily Alice at 2:33 PM on December 24, 2021 [2 favorites]

Late '80s, Maryland:

Mine eyes have seen the glory
Of the burning of the school
We have tortured every teacher
We have broken every rule
We barbecued the janitor
And shot the principal
Us kids go marching on!

Glory, glory, hallelujah
Teacher hit me with a ruler
I bopped her on the bean
With a rotten tangerine*
And she ain't gonna teach no more!**

* Alternatively: "I met her at the door / With a loaded forty-four" (not funny now at all) or "I met her at the door / With a baby dinosaur" (definitely still funny)
** Alternatively: "And the teacher ain't a teacher no more!"
posted by Faint of Butt at 2:39 PM on December 24, 2021 [2 favorites]

Yeah, I skipped the gun ones.
Met her by the gate/with my trusty .38
Shot her in the attic/with a German automatic
Found her at the bank/in my great big Sherman tank
etc.
posted by bartleby at 2:46 PM on December 24, 2021 [1 favorite]

Born in 75 in NE Ohio. Definitely "Robin laid an egg" and "Penguin got away".

Let's not forget Nelson's little diddy.

Joy to the world, the teacher's dead.
We bar-be-qued her head
What happened to her body?
We flushed it down the potty.
And round and round it goes. And round and round it goes.
posted by kathrynm at 3:00 PM on December 24, 2021 [1 favorite]

McDonalds is my kind of place
Hamburgers in your face
Stuff French fries up your nose
Squish ketchup through your toes
posted by carmicha at 7:29 PM on December 25, 2021