Snoopy vs. the Red Baron (song)

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"Snoopy vs. the Red Baron"
side-A label
One of side-A labels of the US single
Single by The Royal Guardsmen
from the album Snoopy and His Friends
B-side"I Needed You" (non-LP track)
ReleasedNovember 1966
RecordedCharles Fuller Productions studio, Tampa, Florida
GenreRock, novelty
Length2:40
LabelLaurie
Songwriter(s)Phil Gernhard and Dick Holler
Producer(s)Phil Gernhard and John Brumage
The Royal Guardsmen singles chronology
"Baby Let's Wait"
(1966) 		"Snoopy vs. the Red Baron"
(1966) 		"The Return of the Red Baron"
(1967)

"Snoopy vs. the Red Baron" is a

Hot 100 during the week of December 31, 1966 (behind the Monkees' "I'm a Believer"); made #6 on the Record Retailer (UK) chart in February 1967;[3] was #1 in Australia for 5 weeks from February 1967; and #1 for 3 weeks in Canada.[4] On the Hot 100, "Believer" at #1 kept "Snoopy" at #2 from reaching the Hot 100 summit from December 31, 1966, through January 21, 1967, after which "Snoopy" fell off while "Believer" stayed at the top for another 3 weeks; however the song spent one week at the top of the Record World charts.[5] The song sold close to three million copies.[6]

The Royal Guardsmen went on to record several other Snoopy-themed songs, including two follow-ups to "Snoopy vs. the Red Baron" – "The Return of the Red Baron" and "Snoopy's Christmas" – together with other tunes such as "Snoopy for President".[7] In 2006, they released "Snoopy vs Osama".[8]

Background

In 1962, the song began simply as "The Red Baron"; songwriter

Charles Schulz, was featuring a recurring storyline of Snoopy imagining himself in the role of a World War I airman (and his doghouse a Sopwith Camel fighter plane), fighting the Red Baron. Gernhard wrote two new verses to the song, adding the character of Snoopy, and gave it to The Royal Guardsmen to sing.[10]

The record was released approximately one year after the first comic strip featuring Snoopy fighting the Red Baron appeared on Sunday October 10, 1965. Schulz and

United Features Syndicate sued the Royal Guardsmen for using the name Snoopy without permission or an advertising license. (The Guardsmen, meanwhile, hedged their bets by recording an alternative version of the song, called "Squeaky vs. the Black Knight"; some copies of this version were issued by Laurie Records in Canada.[11]
) UFS won the suit, on the condition that all publishing revenues from the song would go to them. Schulz did allow the group to write more Snoopy songs.

The song begins with a background commentary in faux German: "Achtung! Jetzt wir singen zusammen die Geschichte über den Schweinköpfigen Hund und den lieben Red Baron," which is a purposeful mistranslation of the English: "Attention! We will now sing together the story of that pig-headed dog (Snoopy) and the beloved Red Baron"[12] and features the sound of a German sergeant counting off in ones ("eins, zwei, drei, vier", after the first verse), and an American sergeant counting off in fours (after the second verse); a fighter plane; machine guns; and a plane in a tailspin (at the end of the last verse). From 1:46 to 1:54 the song quotes a variant of the instrumental chords from The McCoys' version of "Hang On Sloopy". On the original recording of "Snoopy", the lyrics "Hang on Snoopy, Snoopy hang on" were sung at this point. This tactic led to some initial speculation that the Guardsmen were the McCoys under a different name. Prior to its release, these lyrics were removed to prevent copyright issues.

The song's chorus refers to "the bloody Red Baron". As "bloody" is considered a mild expletive in Australia, and some other English-speaking countries, the word was censored by being "bleeped" out for radio airplay in Australia during the 1960s.

Other releases and covers

A rare promotional record (only 1,000 were pressed, labelled "Omnimedia") for the advertising arm of Charles Fuller Productions included the removed lyrics "Hang on Snoopy". It is a two-sided 7" that plays at 331⁄3 RPM.

The song was featured as a cover version on a children's album of the same name in the early 1970s by The Peter Pan Pop Band & Singers.[13]

In 1976 The Irish Rovers covered this song on their children's studio album The Children of the Unicorn on the K-Tel International label. It was the 12th album by this Irish folk music group.

In 1973, a group named The Hotshots reached number 4 in the

UK Singles Chart with their cover version of the song, performed in a ska style.[14]

In 1967, Italian singer Giorgio Gaber recorded an Italian version of this song, "Snoopy contro il Barone Rosso". He also recorded a Spanish version, "Snoopy contra el Barón Rojo", with lyrics very similar to his Italian version.

Also in 1967, Spanish band Los Mustang recorded a different version in Spanish, also titled "Snoopy contra el Barón Rojo", with different lyrics from Gaber's version.

Also in 1967, Brazilian singer Ronnie Von recorded a version, "Soneca Contra o Barão Vermelho", Snoopy then being known in Brazil as either Xereta ("snoopy" in Portuguese) or Soneca ("snooze") in local editions of the Schulz comic strip.

In 1977, a Finnish band Kontra recorded a version in Finnish titled "Ressu ja Punainen Parooni". It was released as B-side of their debut single "Aja hiljaa isi" (Love Records LRS 2185).[15]

In 2003, a band named The Staggers released a hard rock cover of the song.

The song inspired the title of Kim Newman's novel The Bloody Red Baron (1995). The book features both the Red Baron and Snoopy, though the latter is deliberately unnamed in order to avoid copyright issues.

In 2015, Dick Holler, one of the authors of the original lyrics of the song released in 1966, recorded a version of the song along with several members of his family during a family reunion in Berkeley, California.[16]

The song is briefly heard toward the end of Quentin Tarantino's 2019 film Once Upon a Time in Hollywood.

References

  1. ^ "The Hot 100 Chart". Billboard.
  2. ^ "The Hot 100 Chart". Billboard.
  3. ISBN 1-904994-10-5
    .
  4. ^ "RPM Top 100 Singles - January 14, 1967" (PDF).
  5. ^ "Top Pops". Record World. 21 (1023): 15. 14 January 1967.
  6. ^ Mendelson, Lee; Schulz, Charles M. (1970). Charlie Brown & Charlie Schulz: In Celebration of the 20th Anniversary of Peanuts. New York: World Publishing. p. 106. Retrieved 18 January 2022.
  7. ^ Pore-Lee-Dunn Productions. "Royal Guardsmen". Classicbands.com. Retrieved 2016-10-01.
  8. ^ "'Snoopy vs. Osama' by Ocala's The Royal Guardsmen". Tampa Bay Times. May 2, 2011.
  9. ^ Paulson, Dave (October 7, 2020). "Story Behind the Song: 'Snoopy vs. the Red Baron'". The Tennessean. Retrieved December 11, 2022.
  10. ^ Wirt, John (November 24, 2015). "Dick Holler: The man behind 'Snoopy vs. The Red Baron'". The Baton Rouge Advocate. Retrieved December 11, 2022.
  11. ^ joeknapp (2009-12-16). "MusicMaster Oldies: Squeaky vs The Black Knight ???". Musicmasteroldies.blogspot.com. Retrieved 2012-04-13.
  12. ^ "Ocala's Royal Guardsmen head to Las Vegas for end of summer bash". Ocala.com. Retrieved 2012-04-13.
  13. ^ "Peter Pan Pop Band Singers - "Snoopy Vs The Red Baron"". Discogs.com. 1968. Retrieved 2012-04-13.
  14. ISBN 1-904994-10-5
    .
  15. ^ "Moog Konttinen - discografia / Kontra". www.perunamaa.net.
  16. ^ "Dick Holler Snoopy Interview". Dick Holler. Retrieved 2022-05-19.

External links

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