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Christmas with Red Skelton, featuring €The Cop and the Anthem and Freddie and the Yuletide Doll featuring Freddie the Freeloader

Red Skelton Christmas DVD | Freddie the Freeloader

Red Skelton’s Christmas, featuring “The Plight Before Christmas,” starring Red Skelton and Greer Garson

The title, “Red Skelton Christmas,” is both accurate and slightly misleading. Although it actually contains several Christmas episodes (and highlights from another), it also contains other Holiday segments. These include Red Skelton’s Pledge of Allegiance and a very nice Thanksgiving segment titled “The Thanksgiving Turkey”. Also, this 130-minute DVD is authorized by the Red Skelton estate.

Red Skelton Christmas DVD | Freddie the Freeloader
Freddie the Freeloader - Red Skelton's famous Hobo clown

Freddie the Freeloader – Red Skelton’s famous Hobo clown

Red Skelton’s most famous character, Freddie the Freeloader, is a happy hobo clown.  Unlike Emmett Kelly‘s Weary Willy tramp clown, Freddie the Freeloader had a perpetually upbeat personality, sure that good fortune awaited him just around the corner. He typically (depending on the need of the skit) lived in a ramshackle shack in the garbage dump, where he slept in a bathtub.  Although it was a running joke that he didn’t bathe regularly.   For instance, in several episodes of the Red Skelton Show, someone asked Freddie the Freeloader if he was alone.  Freddie the Freeloader would scratch himself, pantomiming that he had fleas, and reply that he wasn’t totally alone.

Freddie the Freeloader – Red Skelton’s famous Hobo clown
Freddie the Freeloader (Red Skelton) singing "There's Nothing Worse than Loneliness at Christmastime"

There’s Nothing Worse than Loneliness at Christmastime

There’s Nothing Worse than Loneliness at Christmastime – [written and sung by Red Skelton, as Freddy the Freeloader, in Red Skelton’s Christmas Dinner]

There is nothing worse than loneliness at Christmastime,
When old friends forget where you are,
While your memory still lingers,
You can count upon your fingers,
Those that know the meaning of the Star.

There’s Nothing Worse than Loneliness at Christmastime
Clem Kadiddlehopper, Red Skelton's country bumpkin character

Clem Kadiddlehopper, Red Skelton’s country bumpkin

Clem Kadiddlehopper – Red Skelton’s country bumpkin character

Clem Kadiddlehopper was one of Red Skelton’s most popular characters, portrayed on radio and television for decades. He was a country bumpkin, slow-witted and big-hearted. Although never intentionally hurtful, he would often cause clownish harm.  Often to his long-suffering father. (“When the stork brought you, Clem, I should’ve shot it on sight!” )

Clem Kadiddlehopper, Red Skelton’s country bumpkin
Red Skelton and Mark Anthony with the Cole Brothers circus

Red Skelton’s poem, The Circus

Red Skelton’s The Circus – a poem in honor of Red’s father, by Red Skelton

Red Skelton, one of America’s great clowns, talks about an American tradition – the home of the men of mirth.  The Circus is an ode he wrote, and recited on his television show. Actually, the poem, The Circus, is  a tribute to Red’s father,  a  clown, whom Skelton never knew, since his father died two months before Red was born. But the love of clowning, the love of mime and of the Big Top with all its magic for everyone, is an innate thing with Skelton

Red Skelton’s poem, The Circus