We’re heading to the East Coast for Christmas, now the land of snow*. As we pack all our luggage into a single suitcase, we’re playing the three-song-holiday-rotation that is the Holiday Light**.
For several years of this, precisely seven, I’ve listened to the Rat Pack rendition of Marshmallow World. You know, some combination of Dean Martin, Frankie, or Sammy entertaining old school. There’s this one part of the song where the chorus takes over and the audience starts laughing. So you’re listening to the radio, to a scratchy classic – if Marshmallow World can be called that – and the laugh track sets in.
What are they laughing at? What’s so funny about this chorus? All I can ever imagine, as I do in black and white, are two dozen people dancing across the stage entering from multiple directions pushing the stars out of the way. They pan their hands across the knees George Bailey style (at 1:15 into this video). And oh yeah, they all look like the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man. Or something like that. Big cotton balls around their body at least.
So tonite, as we pack Edie’s snowsuit for Marshmallow Land north of Philly, the song rotates through The Holiday Lite and I have to finally look the thing up. Here’s the best version I can find. Wait for the laugh track around 1:04 minutes and see what ole Frankie and Dean are up to.
Anti-climatic to say the least. Well there’s always that marshmallow man.
*I swear it took a debilitating blizzard to finally get Congress to pass any semblance of health care legislation. How else would a 1:00 AM weekend vote take place?
**Ah Delilah. I have so many touching stories for you but no song requests in which to explain my call.
