Christmas Crackers

Spike's original 1945 recording of "Nutcracker Suite" has been retitled "Christmas Crackers" for this import from Holland. The master is from the British CD "Musical Depreciation" (Living Era Records). The editing is excellent, but the noise of the original 78s is evident. It is superior to the heavily re-processed Nutcracker found on "Spike Jones Is Murdering the Classics," but not as good as the pristine quality found on "Spiked!" As far as the material goes, this 20 minute recording uses all the popular themes from Nutcracker, plays them in Spike's silly Slicker style, and adds a chorus to provide narration between the instrumental segments. (The words are quite clever, if you can understand them: "The cheesy little geezer tried to be a Julius Caesar, so she bopped him on the beezer and the Mouse King's dead!" But parents beware: there is one terribly out-dated racist line about "chinky Chinamen.")