| "Hello Muddah, Hello Fadduh! (A Letter from Camp)" | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
_-_Allan_Sherman.jpg) | ||||
| Single byAllan Sherman | ||||
| from the albumMy Son, the Nut | ||||
| B-side | "(Rag Mop) Rat Fink" | |||
| Released | August 1963 | |||
| Genre | Novelty song | |||
| Length | 2:47 | |||
| Label | Warner Bros. Records | |||
| Songwriters | Amilcare Ponchielli,Allan Sherman,Lou Busch | |||
| Producer | Jimmy Hilliard | |||
| Allan Sherman singles chronology | ||||
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"Hello Muddah, Hello Fadduh! (A Letter from Camp)" is anovelty song recorded byAllan Sherman released in 1963. The melody is taken from the balletDance of the Hours from the operaLa Gioconda byAmilcare Ponchielli, while the lyrics were written by Sherman andLou Busch.
Allan based the lyrics on letters of complaint which he received from his son Robert Sherman who was attending Camp Champlain, asummer camp inWestport,New York.[1]
In 2019, the song was selected by theLibrary of Congress for preservation in the United StatesNational Recording Registry for being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".[2] The song's mention of "Leonard Skinner", a boy at the camp who "gotptomaine poisoning last night after dinner", was an inspiration for the name of the bandLynyrd Skynyrd, although the band's name was also inspired bya physical education instructor of the same name.[3]
The song is aparody that complains about the fictional "Camp Granada" and is set to the tune ofAmilcare Ponchielli'sDance of the Hours, from the operaLa Gioconda.[1] 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 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 to let 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, Allan 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 acompound fracture, unhabitable bunks, outdoor bathrooms, andLenny Bruce being brought in to entertain the campers.
The song scored No. 2 on theBillboard 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" byThe Angels.[4] The song also reached #9 on thePop-Standard Singles chart.[5] It hit number 1 in Hong Kong, where there were no summer camps in existence, according to Allan Sherman in his bookA Gift of Laughter (1965).
Sherman wrote a new "back at Camp Granada" version, "Hello Muddah, Hello Fadduh! 64",[6] for a May 27, 1964, performance onThe 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 requestingUnguentine. The narrator is taking care of his once homesick younger brother, who does not know how to blow his nose, and who has abedwetting problem. This version was released as a single in 1964. It reached #18 on Canada'sCHUM Charts.[7] Sherman wrote a third version for, and acted in, a 1965 TV commercial for a board game aboutCamp Granada, a "real rotten camp".[8]
The song won aGrammy Award in 1964 forBest Comedy Performance at the6th Annual Grammy Awards.[9] It was played frequently on theDr. Demento Show and is featured on theRhino Records compilation album,Dr. Demento 20th Anniversary Collection. It was played over the end credits of the 1993 filmIndian Summer and was briefly heard inThe Simpsonsseason 7 episode "Marge Be Not Proud" in 1995 afterBart Simpson (Nancy Cartwright) switches the family's answering machine cassette tapes, to whichHomer Simpson (Dan Castellaneta) got confused and assumed it wasLisa Simpson (Yeardley Smith) phoning from a summer camp. It was featured in the final scene ofThe King of Queens episode "Tube Stakes" in 1999, during which main characterArthur Spooner (Jerry Stiller) performs his morning stretches. The song is sung by some of the characters on the TV series7th Heaven near the end of the 1996 season 1 episode "No Funerals and a Wedding" where it is mentioned to be Annie Camden (Catherine Hicks)'s late mother Jenny Jackson (Alice Hirson)'s favorite song.
The song remains a favorite at summer camps; despite Sherman largely being forgotten onoldies radio, the song has passed down through theoral tradition through parents and camp counselors, an example of a song maintaining popularity through means other thanmass media.[10]
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Variations of the song include adaptations inSwedish ("Brev från kolonien" byCornelis Vreeswijk),Finnish ("Terve mutsi, terve fatsi, tässä teidän ihmelapsi") andNorwegian ("Brev fra leier'n" byBirgit 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 being mischievous, running roughshod over it and having run off all the counselors, one of whom has drowned herself in the well 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.
TheHebrew version was translated by playwrightHanoch Levin, and performed by theIDF'sArmored Corps band's lead singerTiki Dayan [he]. 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" (also called Beste Ouders, Lieve Ine) sung byRijk de Gooyer is not about a children's summer camp, but about a soldier in the Dutch army camp atLa Courtine, France. There is also "Brief naar La Courtine" (also called "Beste Kerel, Hier Is Vader") which is the response by the soldier's parents.
The Austrian comedian Paul Pizzera presented a German interpretation with the title "Jungscharlager" in 2013.
The American Jewish singer/comedianCountry Yossi sings a Yiddish version called "Camp Zlateh" on his 1988 albumCaptured.
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.
