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Hello Muddah, Hello Fadduh (A Letter from Camp)
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Wikipedia article
"'Hello Muddah, Hello Fadduh (A Letter from Camp)'" is a novelty song recorded by Allan Sherman. The melody is taken from the ballet 'Dance of the Hours' from the Opera "La Gioconda" by Amilcare Ponchielli, while the lyrics were written by Allan Sherman and Lou Busch.
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.
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". 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..
The song
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', from the opera 'La Gioconda'. 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 letting his aunt Bertha hug and kiss him. At the end, he notes that the rain has stopped and fun activities have begun (such as swimming, sailing, and baseball), and asks his parents to "kindly disregard this letter".
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. This song hit number 1 in Hong Kong, where there are 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", 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 bunk, trunk, or 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. Sherman wrote a third version for, and acted in, a 1965 TV commercial for a board game about Camp Granada, a "real rotten camp". The original version also reached #9 on the Pop-Standard Singles chart.
The song hit number one in Hong Kong, which does not have any summer camps.
The song won the 1964 Grammy Award for Best Comedy Performance. 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 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, a rare example of a song maintaining popularity through means other than mass media.
Chart history
Weekly charts
Year-end charts
Translations
Variations of the song include adaptations in Swedish ("Brev frn kolonien" by Cornelis Vreeswijk), Finnish ("Terve mutsi, terve fatsi, tss teidn ihmelapsi") and Norwegian ("Brev fra leier'n" by Birgit Strm). 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.
See also
* 'Camp Runamuck', a sitcom (196566) 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 Fadduh!' (musical), a musical revue 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".
* K9 Advantix used a parody version of the song.
References and notes
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