novelty songs

938. ‘The Ketchup Song (Aserejé)’, by Las Ketchup

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Ah, the classic autumn Eurotrash hit. Played in bars across Europe all summer, and belatedly making #1 in the UK after the leaves have started to fall…

The Ketchup Song (Aserejé), by Las Ketchup (their 1st and only #1)

1 week, from 13th – 20th October 2002

To Whigfield, Eiffel 65 and DJ Ötzi we can now add Las Ketchup, with this slice of Spanglish surf rock. And, of course, the accompanying dance routine. They were a Spanish girl group, three sisters, and this was their first hit. And call me cynical, but when your group and your first single share a title, and that title involves ‘Ketchup’, then it’s safe to assume you’re not aiming for longevity.

But also, call me surprised, because this isn’t at all as bad as I’d expected. It’s horribly catchy, sure, and largely nonsense (‘aserejé’ is not a Spanish word, nor is ‘buididipi’, nor ‘seibuinova’) with a chorus based on ‘Rapper’s Delight’, but it’s much more of a rock song than I recalled, with the guitars switching between eighties soft, and growling surf, rock. It’s not as in-your-face irritating as some of the Eurotrash that’s gone before and, despite its obvious disposableness, it still sounds like a real song.

This is all a revelation, presumably because sixteen-year-old me wrote this off as novelty crap without giving it a proper listen. I’d still not choose to listen to it, but couldn’t promise that it wouldn’t get me on a dancefloor in double quick time after a jug of sangria. And at least it came out when I was too old to be haunted by its dance routine at primary school discos, unlike ‘Saturday Night’ and ‘Macarena’.

My teenage aloofness has also caused me to miss how bloody massive this song was in 2002. It made #1 in twenty-seven countries, and Wiki lists it as being a chart-topper in every territory in which it was released except the US, Japan, and – the only European hold-outs – Croatia. It didn’t lead to any lasting success, however, and Las Ketchup are gold-star one hit wonders in the UK. Their last release was in 2006, when they represented Spain at Eurovision, finishing twenty-first with ‘Un Blodymary’, though they continue to perform.

One other thing that had passed me by regarding ‘The Ketchup Song’, as well as its relative quality and its success, was the fact that the gibberish lyrics are alleged in Latin America to be secretly demonic… ‘Aserejé’, some religious types argued, sounds like ‘a ser hereje’ (‘let’s be heretical’), with other lyrics supposedly referring to hell and Satanic rituals. The song was banned by a TV station in the Dominican Republic on these grounds… So, press play below at your peril!

911. ‘Because I Got High’, by Afroman

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It’s been noticeable how, as soon as the 21st century began, the top of the singles chart has been home to all manner of depravity. And here is yet more evidence of slipping societal standards…

Because I Got High, by Afroman (his 1st and only #1)

3 weeks, from 21st October – 11th November 2001

We’ve had the rock ‘n’ roll, we’ve had the sex, and now we have the drugs. Of course, this isn’t the first number one song to reference illegal substances, but usually they’ve been protected by innuendo, by a level of plausible deniability. This record, however, opens with someone asking us to roll another blunt. Less than a decade sits between the nudge-wink of ‘Ebeneezer Goode’, and this unabashed celebration of ganja.

But, actually, is this a celebration? Superficially, yes. But then you listen and notice that this song is a list of unfortunate events brought about by smoking too much weed. First verse: I was gonna clean my room, Until I got high… Second verse: I was gonna go to class, Before I got high… It’s not long before he’s being chased by the police, crashing his car, and ending up a paraplegic.

Obviously, all this is tongue in cheek, a fact highlighted by the fact that the paraplegic verse is followed by one about being unable to function sexually: I was gonna eat your pussy too, But then I got high… (Sadly, Afroman is forced to take matters into his own hands, if you catch my drift.) This is no anti-drug song, no inside job to keep the kids on the straight and narrow. But it works as a satire nonetheless, with Afroman and his homies skewering the reasons that those in authority give to warn people off marijuana. By the end, the fourth wall has been broken: Imma stop singing this song, Because I’m high… And if I don’t sell one copy, I’ll know why…

So I like this record on one level. I also like how stripped back it is, just a bassline and vocals. It’s almost a cappella, with some doo-wop backing touches. But the backing vocals, his gang of stoned buddies whooping and hollering, are also the reason that this song grows old, and quickly. Unless you’re actually high when listening, then you might think that this was the greatest song ever recorded. Which I suppose means that ‘Because I Got High’ is doing its job.

Afroman had been rapping since the 8th grade, when he allegedly recorded a diss track about the teacher who had him expelled for wearing sagging jeans. Which seems unlikely, but it’s a fun origin story… ‘Because I Got High’ could be said to have gone viral, by the standards of the time. It had originally been released a year and half earlier, and had slowly grown in popularity on file-sharing websites. This belated major label release came after the track was featured on the soundtrack to ‘Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back’.

Afroman was good for one more Top 10 hit, ‘Crazy Rap’ in early 2002. And if ‘Because I Got High’ is at the limit of your tolerance, or if you’re a Dolly Parton fan, then I’d say best avoid it. After the hits dried up he started releasing his music independently, and remains active to this day, with his beloved Mary Jane still very much a strong lyrical theme (his album titles include ‘Drunk ‘n’ High’, ‘Waiting to Inhale’ and ‘Marijuana Music’).

909. ‘Hey Baby (Uuh, Aah)’, by DJ Ötzi

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Christmas is still months away, so what’s with all the novelties? Hot on the heels of Bob the Builder, Oktoberfest comes to the UK singles chart…

Hey Baby (Uhh, Ahh), by DJ Ötzi (his 1st and only #1)

1 week, from 16th – 23rd September 2001

God, it’s hard to exaggerate how much this record was done to death. Mentioning Christmas feels relevant, because this was played at every festive party in 2001 (and 2002, and 2003…) The murdering of a sixties classic, the cheap synths, the crowd participation – added to the title, just in case you were in any doubt – the key change… The term ‘Eurotrash’ doesn’t begin to do it justice.

But it’s somehow… enjoyable? There’s something endearing about this, and I think it is down to DJ Ötzi’s complete commitment to his craft. He sells it, bawling out every line as if he is coming live, four beers in, from the big tent in Munich. I don’t think it has occurred to him that this could be considered a novelty record, and he’d be mortally offended if you as much as suggested it.

Ötzi is Austrian, while his beanie hat and bleached goatee (which he still sports today, aged fifty-four) have been burned into my memory for the past twenty-four years. Two interesting facts about him: he named himself after Ötzi the Iceman, a 3,500 year-old frozen mummy uncovered in the Alps (Europe’s oldest known human). And in 2002 he suffered a severe form of hearing loss (add your own jokes here…) He remains active though, especially beloved in his homeland, where he’s enjoyed thirteen Top 10 albums!

Bruce Channel’s original ‘Hey! Baby’ had been a #2 in 1962, and had also come back into the public consciousness thanks to the ‘Dirty Dancing’ soundtrack in the late-eighties. Ötzi had his wicked way with another sixties hit as a follow-up, ‘Do Wah Diddy’ making #9 later in the year. He enjoyed a third Top 10 with a remixed version of ‘Hey Baby’ for the 2002 World Cup, before graciously leaving the British charts alone.

Interestingly, demand for ‘Hey Baby’ was such that it had bounced around the lower reaches of the chart for seven weeks thanks to import copies from Europe. This meant that it had an unprecedented, if slightly false, forty-four place climb to the top when finally given a proper release. I also wonder if it’s telling that this was the best-selling record during the week of the 9/11 attacks. Were the public looking for light relief after digesting such horrific images? I couldn’t say. The fact that this and Bob the Builder were the two biggest records at the time does feel slightly incongruous…

If we add Blue’s ‘Too Close’ into the equation, this is, I believe, the first time that three consecutive covers have topped the charts. Also, and this is something I’ve been feeling for a while now, the cheapness of 2001’s chart-toppers is starting to wear thin. These two back-to-back novelties, Atomic Kitten, Shaggy, Hear’Say, Geri’s ‘It’s Raining Men’… I never expected to say this, but the year 2000 now feels like a high watermark for the time, with some high quality dance and pop #1s, and not too much cheese. Now though, we’ve reverted back to 1998-99 standard, when Vengaboys, B*Witched, Eiffel 65 and the like ruled the day.

Having said all this, our next chart-topper is both classy and era-defining, blowing all this novelty nonsense out of the water…

A low-res version of the video:

Better quality version (audio-wise I mean, the song’s still terrible…):

908. ‘Mambo No. 5’, by Bob the Builder

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Bob the Builder manages what all the other Christmas novelties never could. Benny Hill, Little Jimmy Osmond, Renée and Renato, Mr. Blobby… Few of them managed another hit, let along another chart-topper!

Mambo No. 5, by Bob the Builder (his 2nd and final #1)

1 week, from 9th – 16th September 2001

Gone is Lou Bega’s list of women that he’s shagged, replaced with more child-friendly construction items and a lengthy to do list. A little bit of timber and a saw, A little bit of fixing that’s for sure… A little bit of tiling on the roof, A little bit of making waterproof… Bob’s a little bit of a taskmaster, that’s for sure, but his gang seem to be up to the job.

It’s largely more of the same as ‘Can We Fix It?’, just to a different tune. It sounds so much like Bega’s version that I wonder if they aren’t singing over the same backing track. But like the first hit, there’s an enjoyable amount of energy and love put into it. It’s a novelty, but it doesn’t overly grate, and the lyrics are genuinely tight and cleverly put together.

We’ve just had two versions of ‘Lady Marmalade’ at number one with just three years in between, and here are two versions of ‘Mambo No. 5’ in top spot exactly two years apart. Not counting the 1950s habit of releasing different versions of a song at the same time (as with ‘Answer Me’, ‘Singing the Blues’ and ‘Cherry Pink & Apple Blossom White’) this must be a record for shortest time between two chart-topping versions of the same song. Though is it the same song? Same title and tune, yes, but completely different lyrics. After ‘3 Lions ‘98’ this is only the second song to make #1 twice with (significantly) different words.

Bob the Builder and his gang would have one further hit, with rave anthem ‘Big Fish Little Fish’, from their brilliantly titled second album ‘Never Mind the Breeze Blocks’, making #81 in 2008. Leaving seven years between albums was clearly a gamble that backfired… Bob the Builder remained on TV until 2008, before being relaunched in 2010. I can’t be alone in finding the CGI animation of the reboot slightly sinister compared to the original stop-motion version. The CGI Bob has never attempted a singing career, and it’s probably for the best. Good to go out on a high.

886. ‘Can We Fix It?’, by Bob the Builder

/ UK #1s blog / 24 Comments

Ah, the classic British Christmas. Pigs in blankets, a half-pissed Granny, more rain than snow outside, and some novelty tripe at number one in the charts…

Can We Fix It?, by Bob the Builder (his 1st of two #1s)

3 weeks, from 17th December 2000 – 7th January 2001

Bob the Builder joins Mr Blobby, Benny Hill, the kids of St. Winifred’s, Little Jimmy Osmond, and several more, in the festive hall of shame. But I will say that, while ‘Can We Fix It?’ is not a song I’m desperate to ever revisit after this; it’s far from the most heinous example of festive excess.

It’s an expansion on the theme to the popular kids’ TV show, with lots of fun musical references. It opens with a version of the escalating ‘Twist and Shout’ intro, also heard in more respectable chart-toppers from David Bowie and the Manic Street Preachers (which means that the year 2000’s first and last #1s are connected in the most unlikely way). Elsewhere there’s a pretty current 2-step garage beat, and lots of record scratches. For a song based on a children’s TV show theme it actually sounds like it could, in a not too distant parallel universe, be a real pop song.

In the video, by which novelties like this often live and die, Bob the Builder puts on various pop star guises, the most memorable of which is Liam Gallagher, complete with a parka and a sneering microphone stance. It also helps that Neil Morrissey, AKA Bob, has a Jarvis Cocker-esque drawl to his voice, sounding almost like a real rock star, but also like he’s very much not taking this seriously at all.

So, like I said, far worse musical crimes have been committed in the name of a Christmas number one. (And that’s before we mention the many God-awful, non-festive novelty chart-toppers…) But quite how this managed to become 2000’s best-selling single – in a year not short of generational classics – and the entire decade’s 10th best seller (!), I’m not quite sure. But hey, at least it kept Westlife’s ‘What Makes a Man’ off top spot, denying them a second Christmas #1 in a row.

Interestingly too, it was the only one of the year 2000’s forty-two chart-toppers that climbed to the top, entering at #2 behind ‘Stan’ the week before. It then peaked in sales in its third week, taking the coveted Christmas prize.

We finally, then, reach the end of 2000: the longest year we’ll ever cover. I published the first number one of this year on 23rd January, real-time, and we’re now well into June. I’m not sure I can sum up a year with so many different number one singles, but I’ve enjoyed more of them than I expected to (while it’s also been a self-indulgent trawl through my fifteenth year on this planet). Back then I was frustrated at the high turnover, feeling that it devalued the charts (which it does), but I’m coming round to the feeling that variety is indeed the spice of life. Meanwhile, at the time of writing in 2025, the current UK #1 has just entered its twelfth week on top…

836. ‘Blue (Da Ba Dee)’, by Eiffel 65

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And so we come to this story, about a little guy who lives in a blue world…

Blue (Da Ba Dee), by Eiffel 65 (their 1st and only #1)

3 weeks, from 19th September – 10th October 1999

Blue his house, With the blue little windows, And a blue Corvette, Everything is blue for him… I warned you that we weren’t quiet done with the novelty dance hits, but it feels unfair to lump this in with the Vengaboys’ banal beats. ‘Blue (Da Ba Dee)’ has a strange depth to it, a deep melancholy in the piano line, and a compelling bizarreness to the verses’ revving bass and deliberately off-key vocals.

For a start, it’s clearly about someone in the middle of a depressive episode, wandering through a world where everything is blue, inside and out, cause he ain’t got nobody to listen… This guy needs help! ‘Dancing through the tears’ is a well-established dance music trope, but very few records can have mixed dance and depression like this. And really, can you actually dance to this song? The bpms are fairly low, and it doesn’t really have peaks and troughs, the moments of euphoria that dance records need. Just a steady trudge through a blue world.

I can see why this record annoys people (‘Rolling Stone’ have it as the 14th most annoying song ever), and yet I think that’s a knee-jerk reaction. Yes, it’s repetitive and sing-songy. Yes the chorus is just lots and lots of da ba dees. Yes, the video is spectacularly bad (I’m not sure what’s more dated, the CGI or the band’s frosted tips). But so what? Get beyond that, and listen to the moment in the verses where the autotune twists the lyrics to make it sound like the singer’s voice is breaking, and wonder if there might not be some depth to this record.

Plus, if nothing else, it has left the world with that piano hook, which has been sampled, remixed and interpolated many times in the past twenty-five years. A re-write by David Guetta and Bebe Rexha, which tapped into the 2020’s nostalgia for all things ‘90s, made number one a couple of years back, while there’s not a Best of the Nineties compilation worth its salt without this tune on it, like it or not.

Eiffel 65 are an Italian duo (formerly a trio when this made #1), and this their first big hit. They managed a #3 follow-up, ‘Move Your Body’, which was more of the same without being anywhere near as memorable. They then vanished from most charts, though they were scoring Italian hits well into the 2000s. They are still active, and were recently seen trying to represent San Marino at the 2023 Eurovision Song Contest. Meanwhile the funny blue alien from the video, Zorotlekuykauo Sushik IV, AKA ‘Zorotl’ has also released music under his own steam (with a song written by the members of Eiffel 65). The more you know…

834. ‘Mambo No. 5 (A Little Bit Of…)’, by Lou Bega

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Ladies and gentlemen…

Mambo No. 5 (A Little Bit Of…), by Lou Bega (his 1st and only #1)

2 weeks, from 29th August – 12th September 1999

…this is Mambo Number Five. Autumn may have begun while this record was at number one, but the Latin summer of 1999 is still going strong. As with both our previous Latin chart-toppers – ‘Livin’ la Vida Loca’ and ‘Mi Chico Latino’ – yes, this is cheesy, and yes, this is Latin music with all the raw edges softened. But I challenge anyone to listen to this and not smile, just a bit. And even today, you throw this on at any kids party, or wedding, hell even at a funeral, and the dancefloor will light up.

It’s been a while since we’ve had a mambo at number one. Forty-four years, to be exact, when Rosemary Clooney scored her second chart-topper with ‘Mambo Italiano’ (which was mambo in name more than anything else), and Pérez Prado had an instrumental smash with ‘Cherry Pink and Apple Blossom White’. It was Prado himself, the King of Mambo, who originally recorded ‘Mambo No. 5’ in 1949. He had also been back in the charts in 1995, despite dying in 1989, when ‘Guaglione’ made #2 thanks to a feature on a Guinness advert.

Lou Bega, a German-born Italian-Ugandan rapper, had the idea to sample ‘Mambo No. 5’ and turn it into a modern pop-rap song while living in Miami, where he had been turned on to Latin music. The brass band, and the shouts, are that of Prado; but Bega added lots of ad-libs, and some wonderfully dated record scratches and tapes-getting-all-tangled-in-the-deck sound effects (kids these days will never know the pain…)

And of course, he also added the words. Seven ladies that went down in history. Monica, Erica, Rita, Tina, Sandra, Mary, and Jessica. There is a particular joy in knowing someone by any of these names, and of trying to crowbar their accompanying line into conversation. I used to work with a Rita (all I need), while I also know a Mary (all night long), but my personal goal is to meet a Sandra (in the sun).

What’s interesting is not just how big this genre of music suddenly became in the summer of 1999, but how much songs like this and ‘Livin’ la Vida Loca’ remain in the public consciousness, far more than the Westlife’s many ballads and anonymous dance tunes. Lou Bega managed one more minor hit in the UK with the follow-up to this, ‘I Got a Girl’, in which he yet again lists his many girlfriends. He remains active, still dressing like Pablo Escobar on his summer holidays, still peddling his schtick (his most recent release on Spotify samples ‘Macarena’).

Still, he’ll always have ‘Mambo No. 5’. Stick a random pin on a map and chances are you’ll hit a country where this record made #1. In France it was there for a mind-blowing twenty weeks… The success wasn’t all positive though, as Bega and his producers spent seven years locked in a legal battle with Pérez Prado’s estate, before a judge ruled that the writing credits be split evenly. Meanwhile my favourite story connected with ‘Mambo No. 5’ is that it was originally chosen as the theme song for the US Democrats’ 2000 convention, before someone pointed out that having Bill Clinton walk out to A little bit of Monica in my life wasn’t such a hot idea…

809. ‘Chocolate Salty Balls (P.S. I Love You)’, by Chef

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Falling short behind the Spice Girls in Christmas-week, but thrusting to number one for the new year… A funky ode to some sweet, yet salty, confectionary.

Chocolate Salty Balls (P.S. I Love You), by Chef (his 1st and only #1)

1 week, from 27th December 1998 – 3rd January 1999

Part-recipe, part funk-soul masterpiece… Could we argue that ‘Chocolate Salty Balls’ is the first and perhaps only true funk song to make number one in the UK? Naturally everyone came for the innuendo, but they stayed for the fact this is actually a great song, with a nasty funk riff. Plus, the voice is Isaac Hayes – soul, funk, Stax Records legend – becoming one of the oldest chart-topping artists, aged fifty-five.

In all honesty, these balls do be sounding delicious. Cinnamon, butter, brandy, vanilla, and chocolate (though, interestingly, no salt)… Grease up the cooking sheet, (Cause I hate when my balls stick)… Then pre-heat the oven to 350, And give that spoon a lick…! It all leads to a frenzied ending, in which Chef’s balls start to burn, and a piano takes a pounding like nothing we’ve heard since Jerry Lee Lewis was at number one.

If you’re going to do a novelty song – if you really must – then use records like this as your ‘How To’. Ridiculous innuendo, a genuinely good tune, and a proper singer that doesn’t mind taking the mickey out of themselves. Some might blanche at a soul legend like Hayes only making number one by growling Now suck on my balls! I am not one of those people. And it’s not like he’d come especially close in the previous three decades: a #10 in 1975 with ‘Disco Connection’, after a #4 in 1971 with the iconic ‘Theme from ‘Shaft’’.

Chef was of course a character in 1998’s breakout cartoon, ‘South Park’. I was slap-bang in the middle of the show’s target demographic, and the playground that year had been full of kids shouting ‘Oh my god, you killed Kenny!’ (though I wasn’t allowed to watch the show myself). ‘Chocolate Salty Balls’ had featured in an episode a few months earlier, and proved memorable enough to be released as a single, pushing the actual Spice Girls all the way in the race for Christmas number one, and finishing only eight thousand copies behind them. (In doing so it recorded the highest weekly sale for a #2 since 1984.)

‘Chocolate Salty Balls’ isn’t the only chart hit to come from South Park. The following year ‘Mr. Hankey The Christmas Poo’ made the festive charts, peaking at #4. A funny postscript to this record, though, is the fact that Isaac Hayes had joined the Church of Scientology in the 1990s, and left South Park in 2005 after an episode satirising said Church. He also presumably disowned his sole British chart-topper. Hayes died in 2008, following a stroke.

783. ‘Doctor Jones’, by Aqua

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Aqua, looking for all the world like they’d be one-hit wonders, surprise us all by returning with not just a second hit, but a second number one.

Doctor Jones, by Aqua (their 2nd of three #1s)

2 weeks, from 1st – 15th February 1998

Perhaps the trick was that they stuck to a clear ‘if it ain’t broke’ formula. Female and male vocals, Eurodance production, about five different ultra-catchy hooks… The demand was obviously there post-‘Barbie Girl’. The tempo is increased from their earlier hit, giving this a proper Hi-NRG bounce to it. And like its predecessor, this single is also based around a pop culture icon.

The ‘Doctor Jones’ of the title is Indiana Jones, as made clear by the video in which Lene (formerly Barbie) and the other two members of Aqua plough through the jungle in search of René (formerly Ken). Doctor Jones, Doctor Jones wake up now… prattles the chorus, and he does wake up just in time to save his bandmates from being boiled alive. As with the ‘Barbie Girl’ video it’s good camp fun.

This whole endeavour, is of course, complete cheese, and if your tolerance for cheesy Eurotrash is low then this record certainly won’t be for you. I’m fairly immune to it, but the ayypee-aieeooaayyoo-ayypeeay-eh (I believe that is the official transliteration…) line in the chorus is annoying even to me. And sadly, René’s role is much less than it was in ‘Barbie Girl’, with his gravelly voice being used mainly to echo Lene’s lead.

It’s not as good as their biggest hit, or as memorable, but it does successfully manage the difficult balancing act of replicating what made the former such a big smash, recycling it cleverly, but without simply churning out ‘Barbie Girl Part II’. That’s quite a hard trick to pull off, especially when their first hit had had such massive success but had been filed away quite firmly in the ‘novelty’ drawer.

I’m starting to sound like quite the Aqua apologist. But it wasn’t just me, honest! 1998 was their year! Not only did they manage this second number one, they will soon manage a third. A third that will prove them capable of writing a proper pop song, and not just novelty dance numbers.

778. ‘Teletubbies Say ‘Eh-Oh!”, by The Teletubbies

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From one of the classiest, most understated ‘novelty-in-inverted-commas’ #1s off all time… To the other end of the spectrum…

Teletubbies Say ‘Eh-Oh!’, by The Teletubbies (their 1st and only #1)

2 weeks, from 7th – 21st December 1997

It’s a remix of the theme song to the biggest children’s TV show of the age: the Teletubbies. First aired in March 1997, by August it was reaching an audience of two million. I was one of them, I must admit, though I was a good decade older than the intended audience. I don’t know, there was just something grotesquely fascinating about the four… creatures (what the hell are they?) the grassy dome they lived in, the flowers that talked, the pink pancakes they ate… So huge was the programme that a spin-off single was inevitable, just in time for the Christmas number one race. They didn’t quite make it, but two weeks at number one plus over a million copies sold is pretty impressive.

Sadly, but not surprisingly, as a pop single this is utter garbage. It just about works as a theme-tune (though in these days of streaming you’d happily ‘Skip Intro’) but removed from the context of the show it sounds absolutely bonkers. And not good bonkers. There’s the babyish voices, the rather camp narrator, interludes in which some sheep sing ‘Baa Baa Black Sheep’ and a matronly old lady sings ‘Mary, Mary Quite Contrary’, and a prolonged bout of diarrhoea (which turns out to be the tubby custard machine, when you watch the video…) All set to a rinky-dink synthesised banjo riff.

At the same time, there’s not much point in getting annoyed about this. It is what it is. Crap, but also something of a time capsule, a glimpse back into those carefree, late-twentieth century days. You could raise an eyebrow at the ridiculous quantities of this record that were sold – well over half a million copies during its two weeks at the top – but then single sales were at their highest ever levels in late-1997, something we can perhaps explore in our next post.

The obvious comparison to make here is to cast your minds back four years, to Mr. Blobby’s similarly bizarre festive release. But Blobby’s song has an anarchic quality to it, a level of chaos and a tongue-in-cheek quality that ‘Teletubbies Say “Eh-Oh!”’ lacks. The only way you could find another level on which to enjoy this song is if you were seriously high.

Finally, I have to raise a hand and admit that I am, in my small way, to blame for this record doing so well. Or at least my younger brother is, as he bought me a cassingle copy for Christmas that year. I wonder how many other copies were bought as a joke, rather than for any love of the song. Teletubbies was only on our screens for four years (in its original run) but its cultural impact was massive. In fact, if you have a spare minute, why not remind yourself of the ‘Tinky Winky Controversy’, and feel a sense of relief that something so narrow-mindedly crazy couldn’t happen in today’s level-headed world…