Mr. HeatMiser

If you didn’t know it by now, I’m a big fan of Big Bad Voodoo Daddy. They’re part of the Neo-Swing revolution, but I don’t even really understand what’s going on. I just like swing music.

According to Scotty’s Road Journal (he’s the lead guitarist/vocalist):

Next up, MR. HEATMISER, is by far the surprise song on the CD for me! This song comes from a Rankin & Bass Claymation holiday T.V. special from the early 70’s called “The Year Without Santa Claus” (you might be more familiar with their classic version of Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer). The story is silly, but it had a song in it about two brothers, Mr. Cool miser and Mr. Heat miser. The song they sang stuck with me for years. I brought the tune to the band during rehearsals and Josh worked on the arrangement right up until we recorded the last note. (Josh worked really hard on this CD and deserves a lot of credit). Mr. Heat Miser was so much fun to record! We had no idea how it was going to turn out until we mixed it, and about half way through the mix we all knew we had something cool! Even though this is a campy novelty song, I really love the way it turned out. The background vocals alone make me laugh every time I hear them.

After I found out about this song being a cover, I sought out some version of the original movie. When I got my hands on a VHS tape I slapped together a music video. And then I strolled into Suncoast Movies and found a DVD version, which improves the quality almost 100-fold.

Oh yeah, I had to “speed up” the Snowmiser section because the tempo of that section was faster in the video than their version of the song…so no Josh (the piano player) cannot play at super speed <wink>!