Oh, yes, denizens, we need a little Christmas. Right this very minute. <\/p>\n

But, please, none of that overly sentimental holiday schmaltz<\/del> cheer. I’d much prefer something a little less…traditional. After all, it’s a well established fact that we do enjoy indulging our more Twisted holiday side<\/a> here at the lair. <\/p>\n

It’s no wonder, then, that I would love Weird Al Yankovic’s holiday serenade to that jolly old elf himself, Santa Claus. Released as the final track of Yankovic’s 1996 album Bad Hair Day,<\/em><\/a> “The Night Santa Went Crazy” will never be accused of being a sentimental standard. Instead, one might view it as a cautionary tale: You can’t expect one man to serve the world’s greedy little desires in one night, year after year, without the pressure finally taking its toll. <\/p>\n

Either that or Weird Al Yankovic is a horribly demented man. <\/p>\n

However you wish to view it, this song remains a favorite of mine, even more than a decade after its release. I’ve never purchased any of Yankovic’s albums (I think many of his songs are funny and very witty, but his voice often has a strident quality that I find a bit disagreeable to my ears), but this is one of a handful of his songs for which I have made an exception. <\/p>\n

There are at least three different versions of “The Night Santa Went Crazy.” There’s the original from 1996, in which Santa is arrested and placed in a federal prison for his rampage. Later, Yankovic would pen a second version in which Santa is killed by a SWAT team and the elves file for unemployment rather than get jobs with the postal service as they do in the original. The third version is a combination of the first two in which Santa still dies but the elves do go postal. <\/p>\n

Heh. <\/p>\n

I’ve linked to a fan-made animated video that uses the original version of the song. As much as I enjoy the more warped side of life, the “Santa death” version is a little more warped than I prefer at this time of the year. Besides, the animated video has a guest cameo toward the end that made me laugh when I saw them. Watch closely, denizens. The truth is out there…<\/p>\n

[youtube http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=Tb-Mce9VpmY&w=640&h=480]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Oh, yes, denizens, we need a little Christmas. Right this very minute. But, please, none of that overly sentimental holiday schmaltz cheer. I’d much prefer something a little less…traditional. After all, it’s a well established fact that we do enjoy indulging our more Twisted holiday side here at the lair. It’s no wonder, then, that […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_s2mail":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[285,286,287],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lobablanca.com\/blog09\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9577"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lobablanca.com\/blog09\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lobablanca.com\/blog09\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lobablanca.com\/blog09\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lobablanca.com\/blog09\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9577"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lobablanca.com\/blog09\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9577\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lobablanca.com\/blog09\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9577"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lobablanca.com\/blog09\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9577"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lobablanca.com\/blog09\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9577"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}