Jingle Bells (Batman Smells): An incomplete festive folk-rhyme taxonomy
91 points
3 days ago
| 14 comments
| loreandordure.com
| HN
caseyross
5 hours ago
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Advanced version from early 2000s (US), incorporating several additional lyrical-flow improvements on phrases seen in the Tom Scott video and TFA:

  "Dashing through the snow - - on a pair of broken skis - - -"
  "Down the hills we go - - - Crashing into trees!"
  "The snow is turning red - - I think I'm almost dead - -"
  "And now I'm in the hospital with stitches in my head! Oh, -"

  "Jingle bells, Batman smells, Robin laid an egg! - - -"
  "Batmobile lost a wheel and the Joker played ballet! HEY!"
  "Jingle bells, Batman smells, Granny got a gun, - - -"
  "? ? ?, and shot a man in 1931! HEY!!!"
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raldi
4 hours ago
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I’m guessing the missing part probably ended with an internal rhyme for “man”. Maybe “missed the can” (she was aiming at)?
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hecanjog
10 hours ago
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"Jingle bells, Batman smells, Robin laid an egg. The Batmobile lost its wheel and the Joker ran away." is the version I heard as a kid in the American midwest. It's fascinating to me that this rhyme was international at a time in my life before I'd ever heard about the internet.

Edit: Oh, it's simple. This is the version broadcast on The Simpsons TV show in 1989 and I must have heard it second-hand from my fellow students who were allowed to watch the Simpsons.

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cgriswald
9 hours ago
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We were singing this before the The Simpsons, so I wonder if it was the show that made it international or it already was that way.
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jephson
6 hours ago
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I recall being 6 years old and singing the "Wonder Woman lost her bosoms" variant at primary school in New Zealand. This was 1982 so definitely sung internationally prior to The Simpsons.
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paulmooreparks
1 hour ago
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Same. I was singing this in the very early 80's, if not late 70's.
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LorenDB
10 hours ago
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The redneck version goes something like "Jingle Bells, shotgun shells, Santa Claus is dead. Grandma got her .44 and shot him in the head."

Don't ask, it's not original with me.

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cvwright
8 hours ago
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The redneck version that I heard as a kid was way worse than that. Things I won’t repeat…
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culi
7 hours ago
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You mean the racist one where grandma is replaced by a sheriff? Yeah... the US is incredibly shitty about race. My mother grew up in the Soviet Bloc and they learned about Segregation in school. She told me that none of them believed it was real and that it was just Soviet anti-US propaganda. Turns out the Soviets didn't need to make up stories about how racist the US is
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montag
3 hours ago
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Generalizing a bit, aren’t we? I never heard this version of the rhyme
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garbagewoman
24 minutes ago
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Your experience isn’t universal either
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jdminhbg
2 hours ago
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> My mother grew up in the Soviet Bloc

Ah yes, famous racial utopias, all of them.

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gostsamo
43 minutes ago
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Surprisingly, communism was antiracist which explains why it was popular outside the US. There is the fact that many communists were racist on a personal level, but the state policies were inclusive due to the very nature of the ideology. As someone who also comes from the former block, I think that communism was a bad idea with terrible implementation but it also had its moments no matter what the US propaganda is trying to present it as.
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rini17
29 minutes ago
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Have you heard about Roma? The communist states tried to help them but in a hamfisted ways like separating kids from parents. They did nothing to actually resolve racism. Many Roma ended up in squalor in segregated settlements. That goes on to this day and improves very slowly. It definitely was not "its moment".
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cgriswald
9 hours ago
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Must have been other Grandma, since Santa Claus killed Grandma in a hit-and-run. Revenge maybe?
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Sophira
3 days ago
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Tom Scott did a video in 2020 on the exact same subject and premise[0], and it's super interesting. I'd recommend it to anybody who enjoyed this article, honestly.

[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V5u9JSnAAU4 - Tom Scott, 'I Asked 64,182 People About “Jingle Bells, Batman Smells”. Here's What I Found Out.'

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modeless
3 hours ago
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Yeah the Tom Scott video is based on significantly more data. Seems weird that this person wouldn't have found it when researching this topic.
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robrain
9 hours ago
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Thank you for remembering and sharing this - I knew I'd seen it before, I just couldn't recall where. Mr Scott is and was (and maybe will be?) the obligatory xkcd of nerd experiments.
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shagie
8 hours ago
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Tangent - Monktoberfest 2016: Bryan Cantrill - Oral Tradition in Software Engineering https://youtu.be/4PaWFYm0kEw?si=avSAlBsCVUzjW2xo&t=163 (only 2:43 in ... so after the relevant clip, start over and you'll catch back up quickly)

> so let's just do a little experiment here ... um ... so if I say Jingle Bells Batman Smells you say ...

> okay where did you learn that? If that's not a movie reference; it's not not from a TV show; you learn that the way I learned that you learned that - on the playground. You learned that from another eight-year-old another seven-year-old ...

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QuadmasterXLII
9 hours ago
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Growing up, the lyrics always included the verse as well as the chorus: “… and the joker got away! // Batman in the kitchen // Robin in the hall // Joker in the bathroom // peeing on the wall. // …” but I can’t remember how it ended. does anyone else remember this?
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cgriswald
9 hours ago
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We usually ended it there, but I vaguely recall a version where Batman slips on it (the pee) and breaks his balls; I don't recall the actual verse though.
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nephihaha
3 days ago
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Does "While Shepherds Washed their Socks by Night" count?
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jimnotgym
8 hours ago
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While Shepherds watched their kidney beans

All boiling in a pot

A load of soot came tumbling down

and spoiled the blinking lot

Alternative. The Angel of the Lord came down and eat the blinking lot.

Definitely British. Evidenced by the term 'kidney bean'

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phantasmish
6 hours ago
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I’m in the US and was able to look straight up from where I’m sitting at a shelf of canned food and spot a store brand can labeled “kidney beans”. We call them that, too.
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randycupertino
4 hours ago
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How about the add-ons/call-backs to Rudolph the Red nosed reindeer:

Rudolph the red-nosed reindeer *(reindeer)*

Had a very shiny nose *(like a light bulb)*

And if you ever saw it *(saw it)*

You would even say it glows *(like a light bulb)*

All of the other reindeer *(reindeer)*

Used to laugh and call him names *(like Pinochio)*

They never let poor Rudolph *(Rudolph)*

Play in any reindeer games *(like Monopoly)*

Then one foggy Christmas Eve Santa came to say *(Ho Ho Ho)*

Rudolph with your nose so bright Won't you guide my sleigh tonight? Then all the reindeer loved him *(loved him)*

And they shouted out with glee *(yippee)*

"Rudolph the red-nosed reindeer *(reindeer)*

You'll go down in history!" *(Like George Washington!")*

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someothherguyy
1 hour ago
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adzm
3 days ago
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I saw something similar on Reddit r/FoundPaper where a parody of twinkle twinkle little star had a hilarious divergence at the end. Not all mutations have reproductive fitness but it is fascinating to see in the wild.

https://www.reddit.com/r/FoundPaper/comments/1p7bvtz/found_n...

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jimnotgym
8 hours ago
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I heard it in the UK before the Simpsons.

Robin flew away

Mr silly bit his willy on the M1 motorway.

I seem to remember hearing the standard US one in the bit at the end of The Cosby Show, which was on free to air TV soon after getting home from school.

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jimnotgym
8 hours ago
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Edit:

Robin laid an egg. Batmobile lost its wheel and the commissioner broke his leg...I think.

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philiplu
11 hours ago
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Huh, my childhood version was almost the standard US one, but the ending was “and Alfred saved the day”, not shown in the article’s diagram. This would have been learned in the Midwest US (St. Louis vicinity), late 1960s.
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ItsBob
3 days ago
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My wife and I had a good chuckle at these. The one we both remember is the one about Penguin losing his lollipop and buying a Milky Way.

However, we both agreed that when comparing the UK(ish) and US(ish) variants, the UK ones are much more fun and colourful: The US ones seem a little, erm, boring!

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ChrisMarshallNY
10 hours ago
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randycupertino
4 hours ago
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Does anyone else remember the 12 pains of Christmas?

RIGGING UP THE LIGHTS!!

Yo-ho, sending Christmas cards.

The damn lightS!!!

Facing my in laws!

One light goes out, they all go out!!!!!!!

FiiiiiIIIIIIiiiive months of bills!!

She's a witch, I hate her.

You're so smart, YOU rig up the lights!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aMxgttJpbZE

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icehawk
2 hours ago
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It was several years after first time I heard this that, that i realized that #3 was an impression of Archie Bunker with: "Edith, get me a beer, huh.", "oh jeez look at this" and "oh who's got the terlit paper."
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mxmilkiib
2 days ago
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fwiw, from North East Fife (Scotland), it has been ('89/'90) "the Batmobile lost a wheel, and landed in the Tay", the Tay being the big volume river between Fife (the Scottie dog shaped bit on the East) n Dundee/Tayside (with the Tay having come via Perth etc)
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schoen
5 hours ago
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I only know the Tay from the poem:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Tay_Bridge_Disaster

Hopefully I'll get to see it sometime.

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baobun
3 days ago
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Someone should tell the author that Robin laying an egg is the source of Batman's smell.
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