he reads to us from something called 'Ulysses'.

[wolfman]

Just because I’m a glutton for punishment, I’ll try one more time.

A man named Shallan Ermine comes to a party you are throwing. He starts to tell a little anecdote about his 8 year old son. One Friday a couple weeks ago he and his wife went to a business dinner and had to get a babysitter. The kid was obviously unhappy about the situation before they left, but that’s what kids do. When they got back home the kid was asleep , so they paid the babysitter and went to bed themselves. The next morning when they woke the kid up he launched into a story about how the babysitter brought a bunch of pitbulls into the living room to fight, tried to make him take drugs, gave him a penthouse to read, and made a couple nuclear bombs in the garage.

At the end of the ancedote, the whole room is laughing and commenting and one guy says"Penthouse, wow I haven’t seen one of those in years"
Some other guys says “Yeah, showing him luxury highrise apartment listings really made the story”
Everybody else has a stunned silence, glances at each other, until finally someone says “He meant the Porno magazine”

The other guy gets really defensive and goes on a 2 hour rant about how no 8 year old can possibly know that Penthouse is a dirty mag, that Shallan must have been talking about luxury apartment listings because if he wasn’t, it is a moral imperative that CPS be called on Shallan because ???. It is just not possible that the kid understood what the other Penthouse was, and also totally impossible that Shallan threw it in to make a better story.

[Shodan]

@DChord568

I have shown several times over how it works with the third interpretation.

No, it doesn’t work at all if is the Odyssey.

As mentioned, the point of everything mentioned in the letter is to get the camper’s parents to bring him home, and the point of everything in the song is to be funny. Reading from the Odyssey is not something that would induce the camper’s parents to bring him home, and it is also not funny, because it is not shocking.

Again as I’ve said repeatedly, every single thing that young Allan relates in his letter is not required to be “shocking or inappropriate.”

That’s correct. Every single thing in the song is required to be [list=A][li]calculated to induce the camper’s parents to bring him home, and [*]funny.[/list]Reading from the Odyssey is neither, because it is boring. Therefore the parents will not react nearly as much as they would to Joyce, and the audience will not react to the reference nearly as much as they do to the idea of reading the risque parts of Joyce to ten year olds. [/li]

He doesn’t have to lie.

Saying there are bears in the woods and alligators in the lake and malaria is just as much a lie as saying that the coach is reading Joyce. You are making a distinction without a difference.

Regards,
Shodan

[Freddy_the_Pig]

@TriPolar

I don’t see how the camper lying has anything to with this, because I’ll say once again, there was no camper, no camp, no lies, no coach, no alligators. It’s all fiction, and…

Comments like this occur frequently when discussing fiction, and they are very, very tiresome.

Every person posting in this thread understands that the song is a work of fiction. But within a work of fiction, some events are cast as lies or misperceptions that never happened even within the fictional universe.

For example, at the beginning of the Maltese Falcon, Miss Wonderly reports that she has received a frightening letter from her sister. We are soon given to understand that this was a lie, and never happened in-universe.

If we are discussing this and you say, “Of course it never happened, the Maltese Falcon is a novel”, you have added exactly zero to the discussion and insulted everybody participating in it.

[IvoryTowerDenizen]

I think the point of saying there’s no kid, in this case, is to counter the argument that no child would know about Joyce’s book and the counselor would get in soooo much trouble if a kid said that. Whether a real kid would get a real counselor at a real camp in trouble is irrelevant, since those things aren’t real.

[Freddy_the_Pig]

Poll created in new thread.

[TriPolar]

@Freddy_the_Pig

Comments like this occur frequently when discussing fiction, and they are very, very tiresome.

For example, at the beginning of the Maltese Falcon, Miss Wonderly reports that she has received a frightening letter from her sister. We are soon given to understand that this was a lie, and never happened in-universe.

@IvoryTowerDenizen

I think the point of saying there’s no kid, in this case, is to counter the argument that no child would know about Joyce’s book and the counselor would get in soooo much trouble if a kid said that. Whether a real kid would get a real counselor at a real camp in trouble is irrelevant, since those things aren’t real.

In addition to ITD says, the Maltese Falcon has to tell a story with a certain amount of logical consistency. Suspension of disbelief is necessary to enjoy the story. The song in question here is not based on the suspension of disbelief, quite the opposite. There is no need or point to deconstructing it as a reflection of reality.

[DrDeth]

@Shodan

Saying there are bears in the woods and alligators in the lake and malaria is just as much a lie as saying that the coach is reading Joyce.

Ever been to camp? Bears, alligators are exactly what the older kids tell the newbies to scare them. Malaria? Some kid was sick, the kids were scaring themselves with making it malaria.

[DrDeth]

@Freddy_the_Pig

Comments like this occur frequently when discussing fiction, and they are very, very tiresome.

Every person posting in this thread understands that the song is a work of fiction. But within a work of fiction, some events are cast as lies or misperceptions that never happened even within the fictional universe.

For example, at the beginning of the Maltese Falcon, Miss Wonderly reports that she has received a frightening letter from her sister. We are soon given to understand that this was a lie, and never happened in-universe.

If we are discussing this and you say, “Of course it never happened, the Maltese Falcon is a novel”, you have added exactly zero to the discussion and insulted everybody participating in it.

Exactly.

[cjepson]

I must say this is one of the more fascinating threads I’ve seen recently. It’s interesting to see how people can have such different takes on something as seemingly simple as “Hello Muddah, Hello Faddah”.

For the record (heh heh), I remember this song from pretty much the time it first came out… I was about the age of the child depicted in the song, and it never occurred to me that he might be making it all up. I always thought of it as set in the kind of absurd reality typical of MAD magazine (which I was, naturally, a fan of at the time). In fact, I can just close my eyes and picture it as a piece in MAD, probably illustrated by Jack Davis.

[Maserschmidt]

@Freddy_the_Pig

Poll created in new thread.

Thanks!

[Voyager]

@Freddy_the_Pig

Comments like this occur frequently when discussing fiction, and they are very, very tiresome.

Every person posting in this thread understands that the song is a work of fiction. But within a work of fiction, some events are cast as lies or misperceptions that never happened even within the fictional universe.

For example, at the beginning of the Maltese Falcon, Miss Wonderly reports that she has received a frightening letter from her sister. We are soon given to understand that this was a lie, and never happened in-universe.

If we are discussing this and you say, “Of course it never happened, the Maltese Falcon is a novel”, you have added exactly zero to the discussion and insulted everybody participating in it.

Comedic universes play by slightly different rules. You can get away with things that are inconsistent even within the universe - for instance Woody Allen pulling Marshall McLuhan out during Annie Hall.
In this context it is relevant because of the idea that Sherman couldn’t mean Joyce because that would imply the counselor is reading porn to kids and Sherman would get in trouble for that. No, because even at the time people realized that no counselor was actually reading anything to anyone.
For non-comedic stories I agree, though. But the Firesign Theatre’s Nick Danger doesn’t play by the same rules as Sam Spade.

[DrDeth]

So, we have to assume,for the sake of the song and this thread, that Little Allan* really did go to camp. It* was* raining on Day One of his visit. Since it was raining, the Head Coach did read something.

OK?

• even if Allan Sherman never did.

[kaylasdad99]

@DrDeth

So, we have to assume,for the sake of the song and this thread, that Little Allan* really did go to camp.

Item One: Granted.

It* was* raining on Day One of his visit.

Item Two: NOT Granted. WHY must we assume this, for the sake of the song (and the thread)? Little Allan is not worrying about consequences. Consequences for lying and making up the entire thing, or consequences for crafting a dissertation on why he should be brought home, and sending it to his parents with the words “please disregard” written at the bottom.

Since it was raining, the Head Coach did read something.

Item Three: NOT Granted. See Item Two.

[DChord568]

@kaylasdad99

No lies, eh?

What about going hiking in the rain?

Nowhere in the song is it said that the rain has been continuous since young Allan arrived in camp.

We have “They say we’ll have some fun when it stops raining,” but this is no indication of when the rain began to fall. The hike was likely among the first activities Allan engaged in upon arrival.

[DChord568]

@SmellMyWort

There is no “young Allan.” Allan Sherman was inspired to write the song based on letters received from HIS son, Robert, while away at camp (cite).

As someone else said in so many words, saying “There is no ‘young Allan’” is about as useful as saying “There is no Archie Bunker.”

We’re evaluating a work of art (yes, I believe a song, even a novelty one, can be called this). The artist is creating a world within his or her song/novel/painting/etc. We’re evaluating how things “work” within that world — a practice that happens all the time.

Those who are saying “It’s just a song…” or “It’s humor…therefore, it doesn’t have to make sense or have any logic to it,” are taking the easy way out.

If you look at it from that perspective, an adult using something his kid did/said as a source of humor for an adult audience, it is completely believable that he would throw in an outlandish claim like the coach reading from a risque book to keep the kids from turning gay.

I will reiterate my claim that, under my interpretation of the song, EVERY SINGLE THING young Allan relates makes sense, nothing is truly “outlandish” (or needs to be to make the song funny as a whole) and nothing requires any suspension of disbelief whatsoever.

Those who go with the Joyce theory have to just not think about the complete improbability of this scenario from several angles, e.g.:

• What passages from Joyce would the coach read to achieve his goal of having “no sissies” amongst his 8- to 10-year-olds — regardless of which meaning one chooses to give this term? (I invite proponents of this theory to quote actual passages as candidates.)

• How does the coach figure he’ll get away with doing something that, if found out (as it surely will be) will result in the loss of his job and serious criminal action against him? How can he possibly imagine that the goal is worth the risk?

• If young Allan is making up this story out of whole cloth as some contend, why is there no thought to the consequences he’ll face when his lie is discovered?

Everyone who is propounding the Joyce theory has made a conscious decision to ignore all of this.

I’m saying these issues make the Joyce theory improbable, whereas my scenario obviates the need to ignore anything.

The reply to this is “Oh, but it’s not as funny if you have Homer instead of Joyce.” And my riposte has always been “I think the song manages to still be a very funny work without having to include the notion of child abuse.”

[DChord568]

@Freddy_the_Pig

I agree with everything you’ve said up to here, and I’m in the Joyce-Ulysses camp. I don’t buy the interpretation, offered above, that the complaints are a fabrication to get the parents to take the narrator home.

The first time one hears the song, when it should have its greatest comedic impact, one can’t posit a fabrication, because the complaints come before the plea to come home. The complaints are just a comic exaggeration of common camp-from-hell experiences. The narrator delivers them in an almost naive, matter-of-fact manner that suggests the opposite of calculation.

You hear the narrator, and you laugh at bad camp experiences, much like you read an Onion article and laugh at the exaggerated buffoonery of Joe Biden. Thinking of Onion-Biden as a carefully calculating poseur kind of spoils the fun.

Then, the narrator pleads to come home, in a comic exaggeration of camp homesickness. Then, he changes his mind, in a comic exaggeration of the mood swings which afflict kids away from home for the first time. No calculation, no deliberate lies, just a funny naive kid.

Yes, we are indeed in agreement up to this point, and yours is a very good summary of the action in the song.

But here, we part company. The misguided coach tries to educate his charges into young adult heterosexuality by reading from a dirty book. The fact that the book is supremely inappropriate to the desired goal, being a rather turgid novel, only adds to the humor.

And here, we disagree. We have, by your own account, a series of real-life events that require no suspension of disbelief whatsoever. And then, out of the blue, here comes an event that is so far out of line that “outlandish” is too mild a word for it.

Though everyone is content to sweep the question under the rug, I believe that characters in works of fiction who are not certifiably insane still have to have some sort of motivation for their actions, some shred of logic to them.

I believe their ought to be some sort of explanation for the notion that “reading from a dirty book” will forestall homosexuality in children who, at this age, have no idea what homosexuality — and indeed sexuality of any kind — is. As well as an explanation for how the coach figures he’ll get away with it.

You don’t see a HUGE disconnect between everything else you’ve described so well in the song and this?

[DChord568]

@typoink

Let me try one more angle. DChord568, while I disagree, I can actually understand why you prefer your explanation. It makes sense of a sort, it’s clean and kid-friendly, etc. That adds up.

But do you actually still think Allan Sherman was INTENDING that when he wrote it? A subtle blue joke in the song definitely seems like something he is prone to. He was notably interested in / concerned with American sexual morality, and released an entire book about that topic just a few years later.

Regardless of which interpretation you prefer, I think it’s awfully difficult to argue that the person who actually wrote the song, a 39-year-old professional comedian and entertainer with a demonstrable habit of using one-line slightly blue jokes and a known interest in 60s sexual morality, would awkwardly force a rhyme to make a barely-joke reference to a then-obscure poem or Homer’s poem. Especially as that isn’t the name “The Odyssey” most commonly goes by.

Your preferred interpretation is fine, but what flummoxes me in this thread is that you don’t seem to even acknowledge that the Joyce interpretation seems plausible. It really, really is.

Actually, I acknowledged its plausibility in a limited way in this post.

I’d like to expand upon this. Your characterization of Allan Sherman is an accurate one. And it’s entirely possible that when “Hello Muddah! Hello Faddah!” was recorded before a live audience of adults, he might have had the idea of making a sly side reference to Joyce’s novel.

But let me set up my forthcoming “However” with this: I can’t hope to reach the level of erudition of many members of this board or participants in this thread. But, there is something I know a great deal about, and that is AM Top 40 radio of the 1950s through (at least) the 1970s.

Once the decision was made to take “Hello Muddah! Hello Faddah!” from the realm of the adult nightclub and an merely another album cut on My Son the Nut and release it as a single in hopes of garnering AM radio play to the mass market, then the entire ballgame changed.

Here is my offer to the legions of supporters of the Joyce theory who’ve posted here:

I will give $100 to the first person to identify a song that reached the Billboard Top 40 charts in 1963 (or any previous year) that features a passage that comes within a hundred miles of what is suggested by the Joyce interpretation of the couplet we’ve been discussing.

In the word of Top 40 music, something like this JUST…WASN’T…DONE. If the prevailing thought among radio programmers was that Sherman was describing a scenario in which passages from a novel that was widely seen as pornographic were being read to a group of 8- to 10-year-olds…then the song would never have reached the airwaves. Never would have happened.

Only Allan Sherman can say for sure exactly what he had in mind when crafting this couplet. But without the Homer/Tennyson interpretation at least being available, his song could never have moved from its earlier realm to that of the Top 40.

Obviously, radio programmers in 1963 did not share the Joycean interpretation of those in this thread.

Nor, as I will argue in a future post (stay tuned), did the majority of listeners to “Hello Muddah! Hello Faddah!”

[DrDeth]

@kaylasdad99

Item One: Granted.

Item Two: NOT Granted. WHY must we assume this, for the sake of the song (and the thread)? Little Allan is not worrying about consequences. Consequences for lying and making up the entire thing, or consequences for crafting a dissertation on why he should be brought home, and sending it to his parents with the words “please disregard” written at the bottom.
Item Three: NOT Granted. See Item Two.

Because why would he think of the Head Coach reading to them? This does occur when it rains. Mind you, more often it’s something like climbing a rope, but that camp might not have had a indoor gym, or anything other than the dining hall.

Raining is too easy to check on. I mean there’s weather reports. And, it makes sense of the whole song. He gets to camp, it’s raining, dreary, bored. He wants to come home. As soon as it stops raining, he’s fine with camp.

So, why even write the letter in the first place, why ask to come home then change his mind?

[DChord568]

@Shodan

No, it doesn’t work at all if is the Odyssey.

As mentioned, the point of everything mentioned in the letter is to get the camper’s parents to bring him home, and the point of everything in the song is to be funny.

No, the point of everything in the song is not to be funny. How is “I promise I will not make noise and muss the house with other boys” a laugh riot?

I have also stated how the notion of a dim-witted coach reading from Homer to a group of baffled 8- to 10-year-olds also has at least some humorous content — though apparently far less than the creepy notion of him reading porn to them.

[QUOTE]
Reading from the Odyssey is not something that would induce the camper’s parents to bring him home, and it is also not funny, because it is not shocking.
That’s correct. Every single thing in the song is required to be [list=A][li]calculated to induce the camper’s parents to bring him home, and [*]funny.[/list]Reading from the Odyssey is neither, because it is boring.[/li][/QUOTE]

Nonsense on both counts. As I’ve said time and again, the reading from Homer is just one of several experiences young Allan has gone through that, cumulatively, make him wish he were home rather than at camp. There is no burden on this or any other individual experience to be so awful as to alarm his parents to take action. He’s setting out an accumulation of whines in his letter, many of them exaggerated by his own imagination, but none that would alarm any reasonable parent to pull him out of camp.

And by the way, how would you characterize the steady rain that is Allan’s very first complaint? “Alarming?” “Shocking?” Or maybe…just “boring” (that is, inducing boredom)?

Therefore the parents will not react nearly as much as they would to Joyce, and the audience will not react to the reference nearly as much as they do to the idea of reading the risque parts of Joyce to ten year olds.
Saying there are bears in the woods and alligators in the lake and malaria is just as much a lie as saying that the coach is reading Joyce. You are making a distinction without a difference.

Nonsense again. Saying there are bears in the woods and alligators in the lake and malaria are exaggerations fueled by Allan’s imagination and the taunts of his fellow campers — not calculated lies.

I’m rather amazed that you can’t see the “distinction” that any parent receiving a letter like Allan’s would see immediately. And that you would put them on the same level as a lie that would result in criminal prosecution of an adult were it true, and subsequent severe consequences for the boy telling it, is even more amazing.

[Mona_Lisa_Simpson]

@kaylasdad99

And yet, screamingly funny the line is. Go on, give it another listen. If you’ve got a Laff-O-Meter, you MAY be able to disprove my claim that the line is in the top five of the laugh-getters on the record

*And just because I enjoy being difficult, I’ll require, in addition to your recorded results, the manufacturer, model number, serial number, maintenance logs, and notarized record of its most recent calibration.

Sorry, your GMP records for the Laff-0-Meter will not be acceptable if you cannot also document the maintenance and testing records for the Laff-O-Meter calibration tools. Please submit this, and the technicians credentials before you continue.

---

(Sorry, but I used to have to deal with that stuff. It’s a process I tell ya!)

---

Otherwise, despite me wanting to bonk DChord over the head with… um I don’t know… a lumpy camp mattress? A smelly Personal Flotation Device from the 1960s made of canvas and some kind of bulky polystyrene? I am really enjoying the thread.

Funnily enough this weekend my son (age 10 with two years of camp behind him) was talking about what he would say wrote a letter home from his summer camp (he loves his camp, and begs every year to be able to go back longer next time) I just started singing "Hello Muddah, Hello Faddah, sang it almost word for word. We found it on youtube and once he got past the fact that Allen Sherman was in black and white he got a laugh out of it. He never asked what Ulysses was, but he does want to memorize it for the talent show they always have on the last evening of camp.

And yes, can we all agree that it was Joyce’s Ulysses, but even if we are DChord and can’t it is funny… or was until this has been over explained and discussed for 4 pages!