HO-HO ROCK AND ROLL LAUGHING MONSTER 1956 Orig HANDWRITTEN SHEET MUSIC Halmark

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HO-HO ROCK AND ROLL LAUGHING MONSTER 1956 Orig HANDWRITTEN SHEET MUSIC! Halmark

Offered here for the first time anywhere...

The unique original sheet music for the legendary off-beat novelty song "The Ho-Ho Rock and Roll" that was released in 1956 on the flip-side of the 7" 45rpm "Around the World in 80 Days" theme song on Thunderbird Records -- handwritten in ink on transluscent staff paper vellum.

The song is available on YouTube and I've provided an embedded player below so you can hear it.

Considering that this song's sheet music was never released in any form, this is a doubly unique item.

It comes from the archives of Jordan Ramin, the head of Thunderbird Records, the company that put out the novelty 45rpm record. The copyright credit is "Ted Rosen Music Co." -- Ted Rosen was one of the Thunderbird Records partners, and he went on to notoriety as a "song shark" with his Halmark Records "song poem" vanity record pressing company.

The by-line credit is given to "Gloria Bright" which is as it appears on the original 45 record label. This was kind of an inside joke -- the "lyrics" after all are nothing but radio personality Peter Robert's "ho-ho" laughing sounds. Gloria Bright was the wife of Sid Ramin -- Jordan Ramin's brother. Sid Ramin's orchestra provided the music for the song -- and he would go on to a very successful career as a music arranger, including "West Side Story" and is one of only 18 people who have won the "awards trifecta" of an Academy Award, a Grammy, and an Emmy.

The following was published on Robert Rodriguez's "Wanted Records" website blog and provides some extremely in-depth and authoritative information about the recently discovered true history of "The Ho-Ho Rock And Roll":

I saw your post about "The Ho-Ho Rock and Roll" 45rpm and I can answer the questions you had about it -- I own the remains of Jordan Ramin's Thunderbird Records archives.

The first appearance of "The Ho-Ho Rock and Roll" was as the B-side to the theme song of Mike Todd's blockbuster movie "Around the World in 80 Days" ("Around the World" by Jack Haskell) -- in an "Around the World in 80 Days" picture sleeve. These were sold at the theaters where the Todd movie was being shown -- and with Todd's blessings!

If there's been a more bizarre B-side choice for a mainstream show promo release, I don't know what that might be.

Here's how it came about.

Peter Roberts' "The Ho-Ho Rock and Roll" and Jack Haskell's "Around the World" were actually recorded at the same session and both were edited the next day -- October 11, 1956 -- about a week before the movie premiered.

The reason these radically different songs were birthed together is explained by understanding the ambitions of Jordan Ramin. The brother of famed arranger/composer Sid Ramin (West Side Story, theme songs for Candid Camera and The Patty Duke Show, Music to Watch Girls By, lots of Broadway stage stuff), Jordan Ramin worked in Mike Todd's back office but was also a talented musician, arranger and recording engineer -- his moonlighting project was his fledgling independent record label, Thunderbird Records.

Jack Haskell was a regular singer on the Jack Paar TV show. Jordan Ramin had Haskell under Thunderbird contract and had already released a flop 45 in January 1955 with two Haskell numbers ("I Remember Mambo" and "Who Can Say?") -- and another flop 45 in March 1955 with a third Haskell effort ("Tell It To My Heart").

Ramin's label was sinking fast and he was squabbling with his three partners. One of the points of contention was that Ramin wanted to do a rock and roll number but his partners were cool to the idea.

Ramin had two brainstorms designed to turn Thunderbird's fortunes around. His first idea was to do a rock and roll novelty record that featured the famous laugh of radio personality Peter Roberts. Roberts was a popular veteran newscaster and had moved from WNBC to WINS along with comedians Bob and Ray in March 1954.

Bob and Ray would frequently purposefully try to crack up Roberts during his morning newscasts. Roberts' laugh was distinctive and unforgettable and would seem to go on forever, punctuated by him sighing "Ho-ho!". It got to the point where Robert's laughing fits were recorded by the show's engineers and kept ready for use to be played spontaneously on-air for laughs.

Jordan Ramin sold Roberts on doing the record and melded previously recorded laugh tracks made by WINS director/soundman Vic Cowan with new instrumentals performed by Sid Ramin's orchestra. Jordan Ramin personally executed the interesting and fairly innovative reverb effects that make the song so memorable.

Ramin's other brainstorm was to take advantage of his insider knowledge that his boss Mike Todd was producing a movie that was a sure bet to be a smash. He had been planning for a year to ride the coming success of "Around the World In 80 Days" by putting out a song related to the movie.

Mike Todd and his wife Elizabeth Taylor first heard Jack Haskell's version of "Around the World" two days after it was edited and Todd loved it so much that he instructed Ramin to make dub copies available before and for the movie premiere and party on October 17, 1956, for record stores, TV shows and deejays.

This led to Jordan's Thunderbird 45 being sold in every theatre the movie was shown in across the country -- with "The Ho-Ho Rock and Roll" tagging along for the ride even though it couldn't have had less to do with the show!

Finished records were delivered and began to be distributed on November 1, 1956.

Meanwhile, "Ho-Ho" was getting airplay from Bob and Ray as well as other deejays and made it to some high slots on certain regional top hits lists.

When the movie won the Academy Award for Best Musical Score on March 27, 1957, Ramin got the OK from Todd to have Jack Haskell record "Way Out West" to replace "Ho-Ho" on a new pressing for theater sale. This is the yellow label version which came in a newly designed red on yellow sleeve.

Eventually, Todd started to phase-in selling Decca's "Around the World in 80 Days" recordings in movie theaters, but all told Jordan claimed to have sold 30,000 copies of his 45s.

There was a 1962 release of the song, retitled as "The Ho-Ho Laughing Monster" and paired with "Midnight In Canaveral". It was credited to a group called "The Cliff Dwellers" and was put out on Liza Records.

The "Cliff Dwellers" release of "Ho-Ho" is identical to the original Peter Roberts Thunderbird release -- in fact, because the original master tape could not be located, it was made from an actual Thunderbird 45rpm record.

There was no "Cliff Dwellers" group, strictly speaking. "Midnight In Canaveral" was written by Jordan in collaboration with two of his closest friends, Bill Boal and Avery Lagios, who worked at Time-Life. Bill Boal was the father of Mark Boal, the Oscar-winning producer and screenwriter of "The Hurt Locker" and "Zero Dark Thirty".

Why "Cliff Dwellers"? It was sort of an inside joke -- The Cliff Dwellers' Deviltry and Diversion Society (or Cliff Dwellers for short) was a briefly successful organization that ran parties and events for young hip urbanites who subscribed to their newsletters. Bill Boal and documentary film maker Ted Steeg ("Coffee House Rendezvous" among other things) were two of the founders of Cliff Dwellers, and all of these men were involved in its party scene.

Liza Records was a music publishing business started by Elizabeth Taylor and her husband Mike Todd. It was named after their daughter. Mike Todd was killed in a tragic airplane crash in 1958 and Jordan continued to work for Mike Todd, Jr. after the tragedy and was a vice president in charge of Liza business as well as having significant creative music input and recording production duties.

"The Ho-Ho Rock And Roll" on YouTube:

All photographs are of actual item.

Full refunds cheerfully given for any item that I have misdescribed.