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"Snoopy vs. the Red Baron" is a novelty song written by Phil Gernhard and Dick Holler and recorded in 1966 by the Florida-based pop group The Royal Guardsmen. The song was recorded at the Charles Fuller Productions studio in Tampa, Florida, and was released as a single on Laurie Records. Debuting at #122 on the Bubbling Under the Hot 100 on December 10, 1966, the single skyrocketed to #30 on December 17, 1966,[1] shot up again to #7 on December 24, 1966,[2] and peaked at #2 on the Hot 100 during the week of December 31, 1966 (behind the Monkees' "I'm a Believer"); made #6 on the Record Retailer (UK) chart in February 1967;[3] was #1 in Australia for 5 weeks from February 1967; and #1 for 3 weeks in Canada.[4] On the Hot 100, "Believer" at #1 kept "Snoopy" at #2 from reaching the Hot 100 summit from December 31, 1966, through January 21, 1967, after which "Snoopy" fell off while "Believer" stayed at the top for another 3 weeks. The song sold close to three million copies.[5]

"Snoopy vs. the Red Baron"
Single by The Royal Guardsmen
from the album Snoopy and His Friends
B-side	"I Needed You" (non-LP track)
Released	November 1966
Recorded	Charles Fuller Productions studio, Tampa, Florida
Genre	Rock, novelty
Length	2:40
Label	Laurie LR 3366
Songwriter(s)	Phil Gernhard and Dick Holler
Producer(s)	Phil Gernhard and John Brumage

The Royal Guardsmen went on to record several other Snoopy-themed songs, including two follow-ups to "Snoopy vs. the Red Baron" – "The Return of the Red Baron" and "Snoopy's Christmas" – together with other tunes such as "Snoopy for President".[6] In 2006 they released "Snoopy vs Osama".[7]

Background

"Snoopy vs. the Red Baron" was inspired by the comic strip Peanuts by Charles Schulz, which featured a recurring storyline of Snoopy imagining himself in the role of a World War I airman (and his doghouse a Sopwith Camel fighter plane) fighting the Red Baron. The song was released approximately one year after the first comic strip featuring Snoopy fighting the Red Baron appeared on Sunday October 10, 1965. Schulz and United Features Syndicate sued the Royal Guardsmen for using the name Snoopy without permission or an advertising license. (The Guardsmen, meanwhile, hedged their bets by recording an alternative version of the song, called "Squeaky vs. the Black Knight"; some copies of this version were issued by Laurie Records in Canada.[8]) UFS won the suit, the penalty being that all publishing revenues from the song would go to them. Schulz did allow the group to write more Snoopy songs.

The song begins with a background commentary in faux German: "Achtung! Jetzt wir singen zusammen die Geschichte über den Schweinköpfigen Hund und den lieben Red Baron," which is a purposeful mistranslation of the English: "Attention! We will now sing together the story of that pig-headed dog [Snoopy] and the beloved Red Baron"[9] and features the sound of a German sergeant counting off in ones ("eins, zwei, drei, vier", after the first verse), and an American sergeant counting off in fours (after the second verse); a fighter plane; machine guns; and a plane in a tailspin (at the end of the last verse). From 1:46 to 1:54 the song quotes a variant of the instrumental chords from The McCoys' version of "Hang On Sloopy". In the original recording of "Snoopy", the lyrics "Hang on Snoopy, Snoopy hang on" were sung at this point. This tactic led to some initial speculation that the Guardsmen were the McCoys under a different name. Prior to release, these lyrics were removed to prevent copyright issues.

The song's chorus refers to "the bloody Red Baron". As "bloody" is considered a mild expletive in Australia, and some other English-speaking countries, the word was censored (by being "bleeped out") for radio airplay in Australia during the 1960s.

Other releases and cover versions

A rare promotional record (only 1000 were pressed, labelled "Omnimedia") for the advertising arm of Charles Fuller Productions included the removed lyrics "Hang on Snoopy". It is a two-sided 7" that plays at 331⁄3 RPM.

The song was featured as a cover version on a children's album of the same name in the early 1970s by The Peter Pan Pop Band & Singers.[10]

In 1976 The Irish Rovers covered this song on their children's studio album The Children of the Unicorn on the K-Tel International label. It was the 12th album by this Irish folk music group.

In 1973, a group called The Hotshots! reached number 4 in the UK Singles Chart with their cover version of the song, performed in a ska style.[11]

In 1967, Italian singer Giorgio Gaber recorded an Italian version of this song, "Snoopy contro il Barone Rosso". He also recorded a Spanish version, "Snoopy contra el Barón Rojo", with lyrics very similar to his Italian version.

Also in 1967, Spanish band Los Mustang recorded a different version in Spanish, also titled "Snoopy contra el Barón Rojo", with different lyrics from Gaber's version.

Also in 1967, Brazilian singer Ronnie Von recorded a version, "Soneca Contra o Barão Vermelho", Snoopy then being known in Brazil as either Xereta ("snoopy" in Portuguese) or Soneca ("snooze") in local editions of the Schulz comic strip.

In 1977, a Finnish band Kontra recorded a version in Finnish titled "Ressu ja Punainen Parooni". It was released as B-side of their debut single "Aja hiljaa isi" (Love Records LRS 2185).[12]

In 2003, a band called The Staggers released a hard rock cover of the song.

The song inspired the title of Kim Newman's novel The Bloody Red Baron (1995). The book features both the Red Baron and Snoopy, though the latter is deliberately unnamed in order to avoid copyright issues.

In 2015, Dick Holler, one of the authors of the original lyrics of the song released in 1966, recorded a version of the song along with several members of his family during a family reunion in Berkeley, California.[13]

The song is briefly featured towards the end of Quentin Tarantino's 2019 film Once Upon a Time... in Hollywood.

References

External links

• Lyrics at LyricsFreak
• The Royal Guardsmen - Snoopy Vs. The Red Baron (Hit Scene). Music video, as broadcast on an episode of "rage", the ABC's late night music video show, digital TV recording from ABC TV in Perth, Australia, film made by the ABC music program Hit Scene in the early 1970s (1971 is a rough guess), with the word "bloody" censored.

На других языках

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- [en] Snoopy vs. the Red Baron (song)

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[es] Snoopy vs. the Red Baron (canción)

«Snoopy vs. the Red Baron» («Snoopy contra el Barón Rojo», en español) es una canción novedad escrita por Phil Gernhard y Dick Holler y grabada en 1966 por el grupo pop de Florida The Royal Guardsmen. La canción fue grabada en el estudio Charles Fuller Productions en Tampa, Florida, y fue lanzada como sencillo en Laurie Records. Debutando en el número 122 en Bubbling Under Hot 100 Singles el 10 de diciembre de 1966, el sencillo ascendió al número 30 el 17 de diciembre de 1966,[1] ascendiendo nuevamente al número 7 el 24 de diciembre de 1966,[2] y alcanzando su puesto más alto en el número 2 del Hot 100 en la semana del 31 de diciembre de 1966 (detrás de The Monkees y su canción «I'm a Believer»); ocupó el puesto número 6 en la lista Record Retailer (Reino Unido) en febrero de 1967;[3] fue número 1 en Australia durante 5 semanas desde febrero de 1967; y número 1 por 3 semanas en Canadá.[4] En el Hot 100, «I'm a Believer» en el número 1 impidió que «Snoopy vs. the Red Baron» en el número 2 alcanzara la cima del Hot 100 desde el 31 de diciembre de 1966 hasta el 21 de enero de 1967, tras lo cual «Snoopy vs. the Red Baron» cayó en la lista mientras «I'm Believer» se mantuvo como número 1 durante otras 3 semanas. La canción vendió cerca de tres millones de copias.[5]

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