Beginning to look a lot like Christmas

Let me start this out by promising you that I’m hard-put to find a Christmas song better geared to make me start banging my head against the wall than “Little Drummer Boy.”

I mean—that “Chestnuts Roasting on an Open Fire” jobber is pretty sick-making. But for shear wild-eyed get-me-outta-here, shoot-me-now mania, “Drummer Boy” is my primordial nightmare.

However, I’m almost rethinking my stance on this one, because:

If you can watch this video without projectile snorting whatever you might be in the process of drinking, you are one Scroogy dude.

This is so much better than the David Bowie/Bing Crosby version, which still takes high honors for WTF-iness and does make a great icebreaker if the punch at your Christmas party has gone a little flat.

But now, I’m never going to be able to hear any version of this lugubrious piece without picturing those patient dogs at the keyboards, bongos and cello, playing their, er, parts like they know there will be bowlfuls of treats once they get those silly outfits off.

Also—having the actual drummer boy wearing a Chanukah tee shirt and playing like Animal in the Muppets’ band just changes the whole sensibility of the thing.

Somebody needs to write a dissertation on this.