Annie Zaleski

And I think it was definitely one of those songs that showed you another side of her and just showed her depth.

I knew you were going to say that because I did not realize what a polarizing that song was.

And so this was actually written by a man named John Rocks.

He basically, he had studied music in Vienna.

He wrote some Broadway songs.

And the singer was 12.

Her name was Gayla Peavy.

And so she was kind of on a child star who was kind of on an upswing and she sang the song.

And I think what's most fascinating about this song is that the way they promoted it, I think now it's kind of foreshadowed the way music promotion is now, you know, so basically the whole story is she wants a hippopotamus for Christmas.

And so how they promoted the song was saying she needs the real gala needs a hippopotamus.

And so they did all of these, you know, fundraisers and promotion and they did a fundraiser and they actually donated, people donated $4,000, which in the early 50s, you know, I calculated it was more than $40,000 today.

And they basically found an elephant, Matilda, and they, she went to the Oklahoma City Zoo and she lived there for decades.

So it's a weird song and it's definitely kind of all I want for Christmas is my two front teeth.

There were a lot of songs like this in the early 50s, you know, the post-World War II baby boom, you know, children were music consumers.

And I think that was definitely one of the songs too geared toward them.

That one is so funny because it's one man and he basically, and so if people know the song Witch Doctor by David Saville, and he put together the chipmunk song, he bought a really real cassette recorder and manipulated the tapes to make the chipmunk voices, which honestly for the time was very forward thinking.

And he basically made these characters, these chipmunks.

It's funny because he actually almost did not end up on Chipmunks.

You know, he wasn't sure if the singer should be them or insects.

He actually thought of being butterflies, which is, or mice or rabbits.