I grabbed this out of a children's records bin because I'm a sucker for absurdly generous production values (this record expands into a double-hinged gatefold which, when unfolded, forms a little stage, and it includes four card stock sheets full of characters for you to cut out and parade on that stage!). Plus I saw the track titles ("The Hen with a Low I.Q.") and thought: This could be wacky as hell. I was a bit disappointed, really—I guess I was expecting something more subversive. But I could be wrong; this entire album of children's songs could be a giant prank on the under-five set and their parents. The must-listen track here is "Mr. Hippity's Pull Toy", in which an elderly person (obviously suffering dementia) is dragging a pull toy through the streets of New York City when a vagrant child says the pull toy is going to die unless it's fed something called "junket" (!), and the dementia-addled senior wanders the streets asking advice from store owners, people in a church, and finally someone in line at the train station, before the person in line at the train station advises that the pensioner should come with her out to the country where the pull toy will be fine and everything will be all right. (I think all this may have been one of the discarded plot lines of "Naked Lunch".) You make the call!
Curtain Up!
The Hen with the Low I.Q.
The Carpenter and the Duck
The Duck, the Tiger, the Shrimp and the Owl
Mr. and Mrs. Destitute
The Man in the Union Suit
Mr. Hippity's Pull Toy
The Frogman
Miss Mole at the Organ
The Picnic
Can't Dance!
DISCLAIMER: To the best of my knowledge, this work is out of print and not available for purchase in any format. If you are the artist and are planning a reissue, please let me know and I’ll remove it from the blog. Also please get in touch if you’ve lost your art &/or sound masters and would like to talk with me about my restoration work.
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