This jolly tune was a regular play on Junior Choice when I was a kid, and hearing it 40-plus years later still takes me back to my bedroom on a damp Sunday morning listening Ed Stewart on the radio. Gives me the warm fuzzies it does.
Download: The Laughing Policeman – Charles Penrose (mp3)
I knew this was an old record but had no idea it dated back to the 1920s.
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Warm fuzzies? This was more terrifying than Arthur Brown with his head on fire or shop dummies coming to life.
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Not as scary as Sparky’s Magic Piano
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Those old time radio shows for kids still feature to this day on Sunday mornings from 7-9 on 95bFM over here. http://95bfm.co.nz/shows/finn/
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Blimey, we really did grow up in different times. I always think of a programme like Junior Choice being part of an earlier time, and pretty much we were at the end of that time it would seem. There were some bloody scary records played. I still think Teddy Bears Picnic is absolutely frightening. Teddy bears are more scary than clowns.
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I’m not that old, Junior Choice was on the air until 1982.
‘Grocer Jack’ is my most loved record Ed Stewart played. Though I had no idea at the time it was about Jack dying of a heart attack
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I was 13 in 1982, they were still different times!
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I also meant that I was around for Junior Choice, not that you were ancient! If anything the implication was that we both were ancient! Hahaha
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I’m old enough to remember the first time Stewpot used the ‘Ello moi Darleeeng’ jingle. It was a sound-bite from a kid he’d interviewed during one of those visit-sick-kids-in-hospital-for-Chrstmas things, doing a Charlie Drake impression.
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I was — gulp — 20 in 1982
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Stewpot’s revived ‘Junior Choice’ Christmas mornings on BBC Radio 2 for the past few years. ‘Sparky’s Magic Piano’ ‘Puff The Magic Dragon’ and Terry Thomas’s ‘My Brother’ – I’ve absobloodylutely loved it.
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Terry Scott’s ‘My Brother’ I should say.
Though thinking about it, Terry Thomas’s I’d like to hear (‘You’re an EBBsolute SHAR’)
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Laughter is as ambiguous as human sounds get. I have no personal experience, but word is that often psychopathic killers laugh uproariously as they strangle their victims. They’re having the most fun they can have.
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Hearing Napoleon XIV’s They’re coming to rake me away Haha on Radio Luxembourg terrified me. I’d be quaking under the covers. The same thing happens now when I hear Coldplay.
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Sneaking out of bed early Saturday mornings as a kid to go downstairs and have cornflakes and listen to Ed. I downloaded ‘My Bruvva’ a couple of years ago (I’m 48 next week), and I do vividly remember THAT jingle, ‘Puff The Magic Dragon’, ‘The Laughing Policeman’, and other such kiddie favourites. Such an innocent time. Didn’t Ed shack up with some very young girl whilst he was on Radio 1? Oh…the thought of a DJ messing about with kids, eh???
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a blackpool prom classic… belted out from blooming terrifying puppet in a booth
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