Allan based the lyrics on letters of complaint which he received from his son Robert who was attending Camp Champlain, a summer camp in Westport, New York.[1]
In 2020, the song was selected by the Library of Congress for preservation in the United States National Recording Registry for being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".[2] The song's mention of "Leonard Skinner", a boy at the camp who "got ptomaine poisoning last night after dinner", was an inspiration for the name of the band Lynyrd Skynyrd, although the band's name was also inspired by a physical education instructor of the same name.[3]
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 unpleasant, dangerous, and tragic developments, such as fellow campers going missing or contracting deadly illnesses. He asks how his "precious little brother" is doing, and begs to be taken home, afraid of being left out in the forest and fearing getting eaten by a bear, promising to behave, and even letting his aunt hug and kiss him. At the end, he notes that the rain has stopped and fun activities such as swimming, sailing, and baseball have begun, and asks his parents to "kindly disregard this letter".
The following year, Sherman released a sequel song set to the same melody, "Return to Camp Granada". In this version, the boy writes to his parents again, but this time, he wants to stay and his younger brother is attending the camp as well. He describes another set of disastrous events, including a compound fracture, unhabitable bunks, thin bathrooms, and Lenny Bruce being brought in to entertain the campers.
Success
The song scored No. 2 on the Billboard Hot 100 list for three weeks beginning on August 24, 1963. It was kept from No. 1 by both "Fingertips" by "Little" Stevie Wonder and "My Boyfriend's Back" by The Angels.[4] This song hit number 1 in Hong Kong, where there were no summer camps in existence, according to Alan Sherman in his book A Gift of Laughter (1965). Sherman wrote a new "back at Camp Granada" version, "Hello Muddah, Hello Fadduh! 64",[5] for a May 27, 1964, performance on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson. Sherman began that version by giving a camp whistle, followed by his spelling Granada's name, and then sticks out his tongue. In that version, the narrator is back at camp, recovering from his compound fracture, where some things, like the food have improved, "because the little black things in it are not moving". However, no one "knows where his trunk is and his bunk is where the skunk is." The narrator wishes that the showers, that have thin doors, were moved indoors. The narrator takes swimming lessons from an overweight woman. ("A Whale in a Bikini"). Lenny Bruce was scheduled to entertain there at the camp. The narrator loves the camp, missing the poker games, and requesting Unguentine. The narrator is taking care of his once homesick younger brother, who does not know how to blow his nose, and who has a bedwetting problem. This version was released as a single in 1964. It reached #18 on Canada's CHUM Charts.[6] Sherman wrote a third version for, and acted in, a 1965 TV commercial for a board game about Camp Granada, a "real rotten camp".[7] The original version also reached #9 on the Pop-Standard Singles chart.[8]
The song won the 1964 Grammy Award for Best Comedy Performance.[9] It was played frequently on the Dr. Demento Show and is featured on the Rhino Records compilation album, Dr. Demento 20th Anniversary Collection. It was played over the end credits of the 1993 film Indian Summer and was briefly heard in The Simpsons episode "Marge Be Not Proud" after Bart Simpson switches the family's answering machine cassette tapes, to which Homer got confused and assumed it was Lisa phoning from a summer camp. It was featured in the final scene of The King of Queens episode "Tube Stakes", during which main character Arthur Spooner performs his morning stretches. The song is sung by some of the characters on the TV series 7th Heaven near the end of the episode "No Weddings and a Funeral" where it is mentioned to be Mrs. Camden's late mother's favorite song.
The song remains a favorite at summer camps; despite Sherman largely being forgotten on oldies radio, the song has passed down through the oral tradition through parents and camp counselors, an example of a song maintaining popularity through means other than mass media.[10]
Variations of the song include adaptations in Swedish ("Brev från kolonien" by Cornelis Vreeswijk), Finnish ("Terve mutsi, terve fatsi, tässä teidän ihmelapsi") and Norwegian ("Brev fra leier'n" by Birgit Strøm). The Finnish version is included in the Finnish Boy Scouts' songbook. The Swedish version notably does not revolve around the camper hating the camp, but is about the kids running roughshod over it and having run off all the counselors, one of whom has committed suicide after they let a snake into the mess hall, and the organizer of the camp being arrested by police after the kids start a forest fire. The song begins with the boy writing the letter asking his parents to send more money, because he has lost all his pocket money playing dice with the other campers. The song then ends with the boy having to wrap up the letter as he is about to join the others in burning down the neighboring camp lodge.
The Hebrew version was translated by playwright Hanoch Levin, and performed by the IDF's Armored Corps band's lead singer Tiki Dayan. The girl camper, in this version, goes through similar situations to the English original, but the camp itself is hinted to be more like a prison (e.g. she is writing from "my cell"). The camper wishes she could be back in school with its abusive teachers and principal.
The Dutch version "Brief uit la Courtine" sung by Rijk de Gooyer is not about a children's summer camp, but about a soldier in the Dutch army camp at La Courtine, France.
The Austrian comedian Paul Pizzera presented a German interpretation with the title "Jungscharlager" in 2013.
The American Jewish singer/comedian Country Yossi sings a Yiddish version called "Camp Zlateh" on his 1988 album "Captured".
See also
Camp Runamuck, a sitcom (1965–66) loosely inspired by the song
Camp Granada, a 1965 board game inspired by the song
Sandra Gould, who released a response novelty recording, set to the same music, entitled "Hello Melvin (This Is Mama)".
Perrey and Kingsley did an instrumental version, called Countdown at 6, on The In Sound From Way Out. Like "Hello Muddah, Hello Fadduh", it is based on Amilcare Ponchielli's "Dance of the Hours".
Downy used a parody version of the song in a 1985 commercial.
↑ Ross, Sean (July 27, 2021). "Who's teaching your kids oldies? Radio, and you". Radio Insight. Retrieved July 27, 2021. Some songs have a long history of being passed down among generations long after their time on the radio had ended. Longtime music writer Chuck Eddy's 13-year-old recently "became obsessed" with Allan Sherman's "Hello Muddah, Hello Faddah" before going to summer camp for the first time, then discovered other Sherman songs.
Amilcare Ponchielli was an Italian opera composer, best known for his opera La Gioconda. He was married to the soprano Teresina Brambilla.
Allan Sherman was an American musician, satirist and television producer who became known as a song parodist in the early 1960s. His first album, My Son, the Folk Singer (1962), became the fastest-selling record album up to that time. His biggest hit was "Hello Muddah, Hello Fadduh", a comic song in which a boy describes his summer camp experiences to the tune of Ponchielli's Dance of the Hours.
Barret Eugene Hansen, known professionally as Dr. Demento, is an American radio broadcaster and record collector specializing in novelty songs, comedy, and strange or unusual recordings dating from the early days of phonograph records to the present. Hansen created the Demento persona in 1970 while working at Pasadena, California station KPPC-FM. He played "Transfusion" by Nervous Norvus on the radio, and DJ "The Obscene" Steven Clean said that Hansen had to be "demented" to play it, and the name stuck. His weekly show went into syndication in 1974 and was syndicated by the Westwood One Radio Network from 1978 to 1992. Broadcast syndication of the show ended on June 6, 2010, but the show continues to be produced weekly in an online version.
"Kamp Krusty" is the first episode of the fourth season of the American animated television series The Simpsons. It originally aired on the Fox network in the United States on September 24, 1992. In the episode, the children of Springfield attend Kamp Krusty, a summer camp named after Krusty the Clown. The camp is extremely unpleasant, leading to the campers rebelling against the camp director. Meanwhile, with the kids away, Homer and Marge enjoy more time together, and Homer becomes physically and emotionally healthier.
Dance of the Hours is a short ballet and is the act 3 finale of the opera La Gioconda composed by Amilcare Ponchielli. It depicts the hours of the day through solo and ensemble dances. The opera was first performed in 1876 and was revised in 1880. Later performed on its own, the Dance of the Hours was at one time one of the best known and most frequently performed ballets. It became even more widely known after its inclusion in the 1940 Walt Disney animated film Fantasia where it is depicted as a comic ballet featuring ostriches, hippopotamuses, elephants and alligators.
La Gioconda is an opera in four acts by Amilcare Ponchielli set to an Italian libretto by Arrigo Boito, based on Angelo, Tyrant of Padua, a 1835 play in prose by Victor Hugo.
Sandra Gould was an American actress, known for her role as Gladys Kravitz on the sitcom Bewitched. Gould was the second actress to portray the role, debuting at the start of the third season.
Junior Choice is a BBC Radio programme originally broadcast from 1967 until 1982 with Christmas specials from 2007 until 2015 and again since 2017. Originally broadcast on the BBC Light Programme on Saturday mornings from 9.10 to 9.55, and later BBC Radio 1, and BBC Radio 2, its precursor from 1952 was entitled Children's Choice, echoing the weekday Housewives' Choice, then from 1954, Children's Favourites.
Oriole Records was a British record label, founded in 1925 by the London-based Levy Company, which owned a gramophone record subsidiary called Levaphone Records.
"Sam Hall" is an English language folk song about a unrepentant criminal condemned to death for robbing the rich to feed the poor. Prior to the mid-19th century it was called "Jack Hall", after an infamous English thief, who was hanged in 1707 at Tyburn. Jack Hall's parents sold him as a climbing boy for one guinea, which is why most versions of the song identify Sam or Jack Hall as a chimney sweep.
Hello Muddah, Hello Fadduh! is a musical revue based on the song "Hello Muddah, Hello Fadduh" by Allan Sherman and Lou Busch. It is the life story of Barry Brockman and his lifelong sweetheart Sarah Jackman from birth to early education, summer camp to marriage, and parenthood in suburban New York to Florida retirement. Songs include the title song, "Harvey and Sheila", and "Glory, Glory Harry Lewis".
Camp Granada is a 1965 children's board game by the Milton Bradley Company based on Allan Sherman's 1963 novelty song "Hello Muddah, Hello Fadduh ." Campers take turns driving a breakdown-prone bus to gather animals from various summer camp locations to be the first to leave for home. The game board depicts spikes on the diving board, an octopus in the swimming hole, and a lover's leap into a volcano.
Camp Runamuck is an American sitcom that aired on NBC during the 1965–66 television season. The series was created and executive produced by David Swift, and aired for 26 episodes.
My Son, the Nut is the third album by Allan Sherman, released by Warner Bros. Records in 1963. The album held the top spot on the Billboard Top 200 for nearly two months, from August 31 to October 25, 1963. It stayed on the charts for 140 weeks and sold 1.2 million copies. My Son, the Nut was also the last comedy album to hit #1 on the Billboard 200 for over half a century, until "Weird Al" Yankovic's Mandatory Fun in 2014.
Paul Kreppel is an American actor and director. On television, he was best known as pianist Sonny Mann on the show It's a Living. In his work as theater director-producer-creator, he received the 2007 Tony Award for Jay Johnson: The Two and Only.
Camp Wekeela is a 293-acre sleep-away summer camp on Little Bear Pond in Hartford, Maine. It is a traditional resident summer camp for boys and girls ages 7–16, in season from June to August with an estimated 280 campers and 135 employees each summer.
The original use of the term "parody" in music referred to re-use for wholly serious purposes of existing music. In popular music that sense of "parody" is still applicable to the use of folk music in the serious songs of such writers as Bob Dylan, but in general, "parody" in popular music refers to the humorous distortion of musical ideas or lyrics or general style of music.
Hello Muddah, Hello Faddah! is a children's book based on the novelty song "Hello Muddah, Hello Fadduh " by Allan Sherman and Lou Busch, and illustrated by Jack E. Davis.
I Am the Greatest is a comedy album by boxer Cassius Clay, released in August 1963 – six months before he won the world heavyweight championship, publicly announced his conversion to Islam, and changed his name to Muhammad Ali. It was released by CBS Columbia. The album helped establish Ali's reputation as an eloquently poetic "trash talker". The album has also been identified as an early example of rap music and a precursor to hip hop music.
Hello Muddah, Hello Faddah! may refer to:
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