Yes, it’s that time again: Christmas party night and the sad
inevitability that is the Blagg Calendar novelty record.
This year it’s a BOGOF – although you won’t thank me for it –
as Lenny the Lion sings ‘I Want A Hippopotamus For Christmas’ hopefully ably abetted (‘cos otherwise I’d be very worried!) by Terry Hall (NOT the one from
The Specials, you doughnut) on whose arm Lenny used to sit. Following this is the original version of the song by child star Gayla Peevey linked with a later version by the 73-year-old Peevey. It just gets better and better, doesn't it?
During the late ‘50’s
and into the ‘60’s, ventriloquist Hall and his lion used to appear regularly on
Children’s TV, at one point having their own TV show ‘Pops and Lenny’ on which The Beatles made an early
appearance.
It’s quite hard to find a recording of ‘Hippopotamus’ anywhere
– unsurprisingly other than some plays on Children’s radio it pretty much sank without trace
- but a fellow blogger had it on his site and that sufficed for some years. Sadly, that site has now gone so - a first here! - I loaded it onto YouTube myself. Thank me later. It’s a popular one for the kids
and has been a Blagg Jnr. favourite since he was a small boy and, in fact, we played
it in the car just last weekend. Blagg Jnr. is now 72.
There is a link between the Hall / Lenny song and the
accompanying ‘bonus’ video though, because during a trip to the U.S. in 1958, Hall
made an appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show, as earlier did original singer of the
song, child star Gayla Peevy. In fact, Peevey’s appearance
on the Sullivan show was in 1953 where she sang the song as a 10-year-old. It went
on to become a U.S. hit.
Listen to Gayla sing and then
marvel. Does that voice really come from that body?
Scary!
There is a fascinating footnote to this whole story too. Oklahoma Zoo capitalised upon the
popularity of "I Want A Hippopotamus for Christmas" with a
fundraising campaign to "buy a hippo for Gayla", the fund raised
$3,000, and a baby hippopotamus named Matilda was purchased and given to Peevey
who then donated it back to the zoo. The then 2 year old hippopotamus named
Matilda spent 45 years in the Zoo, passing away at age 47 from a heart attack
in 1998 while being transferred to the Walt Disney’s Animal Kingdom.
Sadly, Terry Hall
passed away in 2007, while Gayla became a teacher and then run her own advertising
firm. She is still going strong, aged 78 (2021). The whereabouts of Lenny
the Lion is unknown, although rumours that he had to enter a drug
rehabilitation clinic recently can probably be discounted.
