Hello Muddah, Hello Fadduh
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For the musical review and children's book, see Hello Muddah, Hello Faddah.
| “Hello Muddah, Hello Fadduh (A Letter from Camp)” |
||
|---|---|---|
| Song by Allan Sherman | ||
| Album | My Son, the Nut | |
| Released | 1963 | |
| Genre | Novelty song | |
| Writer | Allan Sherman | |
"Hello Muddah, Hello Fadduh (A Letter from Camp)" is the Grammy-winning novelty song based on Kvetch letters Allan Sherman received from his son attending Camp Champlain, New York.[1] The song is a parody that complains about Camp Granada (e.g., "Leonard Skinner"[2] got "Ptomaine poisoning") and is set to the tune of Ponchielli's Dance of the Hours. The title is taken 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.
After the song reached #2 on the Billboard Hot 100 for three weeks beginning August 24, 1963, Sherman wrote a new 1964 "back at Camp Granada" version, Hello Mudduh, Hello Fadduh!, for a May 27, 1964 performance on the The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson. Sherman wrote a third version for, and appeared in, a 1965 TV commercial for a board game about Camp Granada, a "real rotten camp."[3]
Variations of the song include translations in Swedish ("Brev från kolonien" by Cornelis Vreeswijk) , Norwegian ("Brev fra leier'n" by Birgit Strøm), Esperanto and Dutch. A rather sinister version in Hebrew was written by Hanoch Levin in 1966 (מכתב מן הקייטנה, sung by Tsippi Shavit). In addition to the Grammy Award, the song is #8 on the list of 100 Greatest Novelty Songs.
| 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 |
[edit] References in popular culture
An episode title of The Simpsons spoofs this song, and in "Marge Be Not Proud", Bart puts the song on the answering machine in which Homer humorously asks Marge, "Did Lisa go to Camp Granada?"
The song is sung on three episodes of 7th Heaven: "In The Blink Of An Eye", "No Funerals And A Wedding", and "In Praise of Women".
An animated puppy sings "Hello mother, hello father, fleas, ticks, mosquitoes, they really bother..." in a 2004 K9 Advantix TV commercial.
1980s TV commercials for Procter & Gamble's Downy fabric softener spoofed the song.
In King of Queens episode "Tube Stakes", Arthur Spooner exercises to the song.
Goldmember sings a version with incorrect lyrics in an Austin Powers in Goldmember deleted scene to clarify the word "fazha" (father).
Roger Ebert's review of Wet Hot American Summer was based on this song.
In 1965 Cornelis Vreeswijk wrote "Brev från kolonien", a swedish version of the song.
[edit] References and Notes
- ^ Paul Lieberman (August 16, 2003). The Boy in Camp Granada. Lifestyle. LA Times. Retrieved on 2008-02-09.
NOTE: Sherman's son, Robert (born 1949) was kicked out of Camp Champlain. - ^ NOTE: The song's reference to Leonard Skinner is years prior to the forming of Lynyrd Skynyrd.
- ^ LikeTelevision - Camp Granada by Milton Bradley. liketelevision ...only better. LikeTelevision. Retrieved on 2008-02-09.
