Most Forgotten Hitters know that “Baby It’s Cold Outside” is a Classic Wintertime Song which, until fairly recently, generally had been heard this time of the year each Holiday Season.
It actually won the 1949 Academy Award for Best Original Song. But since then, it's garnered a lot of controversy due to its lyrics that many feel condones personal assault and lack of consent. In 2018, Cleveland’s “Official Christmas Music Radio Station” removed the song from their on-air playlist because they said their listeners deemed the overall implied seduction theme inappropriate in today’s times.
Other radio stations did the same, including many Canadian stations that removed the song from their playlists saying that it didn't align with their societal standards.
Today you might hear it on the radio; you might not. But it’s not totally banned from Christmas Music Programming Services provided for some retail stores and other public places.
At any rate, here for your review, is "CB at the Movies," with the original Movie Scenes from the vintage film “Neptune's Daughter,” a 1949 romantic musical comedy starring Esther Williams and Ricardo Montalbán. In the interest of Gender Equality, it’s immediately followed by Red Skelton and Betty Garret’s equally suggestive ‘role-reversal’ scene with a few slight and clever lyric changes. Listen carefully. Both scenes were shot in just One Take! And their Choreography is flawless!
Another well-known Forgotten Holiday Hit that was once temporarily banned because it also received its share of controversy is the 1952 song about a young boy who wakes up still a bit early on Christmas Eve and sees his Mom and Santa (who is really his Dad) kissing under the mistletoe.
The Catholic Archdiocese of Boston blasted the song for its “suggestive language.” They said it linked Christmas to Sex. Jimmy Boyd, who was just 13 when he recorded his Holiday Hit, went to meet with the church leaders to clarify the basically innocent story that his song was about and later, with their satisfaction, its ban was lifted.
Then the following year, Eartha Kitt released her 1953 Holiday Hit, “Santa Baby,” which since has also fallen under controversy due to its implied sexual lyrics and sultry tone.
Never really banned, but still scrutinized, it’s been covered by a number of popular singers, probably most notably, Madonna.
But circling the Sleigh back to “Baby, It’s Cold Outside,” just to balance things out, attached is a Politically Correct Version for today!
CB ( which stands for “Carolin’ Boy! )
And, for all you radio freaks out there ...
60 YEARS AGO TODAY:
12/24/63 – New York International Airport is renamed John F. Kennedy International Airport, most commonly referred to as “JFK.”
