My wife and I had a good chuckle at these. The one we both remember is the one about Penguin losing his lollipop and buying a Milky Way.

However, we both agreed that when comparing the UK(ish) and US(ish) variants, the UK ones are much more fun and colourful: The US ones seem a little, erm, boring!

Someone should tell the author that Robin laying an egg is the source of Batman's smell.

Tom Scott did a video in 2020 on the exact same subject and premise[0], and it's super interesting. I'd recommend it to anybody who enjoyed this article, honestly.

[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V5u9JSnAAU4 - Tom Scott, 'I Asked 64,182 People About “Jingle Bells, Batman Smells”. Here's What I Found Out.'

I saw something similar on Reddit r/FoundPaper where a parody of twinkle twinkle little star had a hilarious divergence at the end. Not all mutations have reproductive fitness but it is fascinating to see in the wild.

https://www.reddit.com/r/FoundPaper/comments/1p7bvtz/found_n...

Does "While Shepherds Washed their Socks by Night" count?

fwiw, from North East Fife (Scotland), it has been ('89/'90) "the Batmobile lost a wheel, and landed in the Tay", the Tay being the big volume river between Fife (the Scottie dog shaped bit on the East) n Dundee/Tayside (with the Tay having come via Perth etc)

Huh, my childhood version was almost the standard US one, but the ending was “and Alfred saved the day”, not shown in the article’s diagram. This would have been learned in the Midwest US (St. Louis vicinity), late 1960s.

The redneck version goes something like "Jingle Bells, shotgun shells, Santa Claus is dead. Grandma got her .44 and shot him in the head."

Don't ask, it's not original with me.

"Jingle bells, Batman smells, Robin laid an egg. The Batmobile lost its wheel and the Joker ran away." is the version I heard as a kid in the American midwest. It's fascinating to me that this rhyme was international at a time in my life before I'd ever heard about the internet.

Edit: Oh, it's simple. This is the version broadcast on The Simpsons TV show in 1989 and I must have heard it second-hand from my fellow students who were allowed to watch the Simpsons.

A classic: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_XU6zrGyUUo

Growing up, the lyrics always included the verse as well as the chorus: “… and the joker got away! // Batman in the kitchen // Robin in the hall // Joker in the bathroom // peeing on the wall. // …” but I can’t remember how it ended. does anyone else remember this?

I heard it in the UK before the Simpsons.

Robin flew away

Mr silly bit his willy on the M1 motorway.

I seem to remember hearing the standard US one in the bit at the end of The Cosby Show, which was on free to air TV soon after getting home from school.

Tangent - Monktoberfest 2016: Bryan Cantrill - Oral Tradition in Software Engineering https://youtu.be/4PaWFYm0kEw?si=avSAlBsCVUzjW2xo&t=163 (only 2:43 in ... so after the relevant clip, start over and you'll catch back up quickly)

> so let's just do a little experiment here ... um ... so if I say Jingle Bells Batman Smells you say ...

> okay where did you learn that? If that's not a movie reference; it's not not from a TV show; you learn that the way I learned that you learned that - on the playground. You learned that from another eight-year-old another seven-year-old ...

Advanced version from early 2000s (US), incorporating several additional lyrical-flow improvements on phrases seen in the Tom Scott video and TFA:

  "Dashing through the snow - - on a pair of broken skis - - -"
  "Down the hills we go - - - Crashing into trees!"
  "The snow is turning red - - I think I'm almost dead - -"
  "And now I'm in the hospital with stitches in my head! Oh, -"

  "Jingle bells, Batman smells, Robin laid an egg! - - -"
  "Batmobile lost a wheel and the Joker played ballet! HEY!"
  "Jingle bells, Batman smells, Granny got a gun, - - -"
  "? ? ?, and shot a man in 1931! HEY!!!"

  ? ? ?, ? ? ? ?, in nineteen thirty one. Hey!

The egg is canon. Joker sings this version in the BtAS Christmas episode.

https://youtu.be/DpV9f4Tv8kA?feature=shared

All I can think of reading this is how many versions - and how enriched with genius local detail - of the Illiad, Gilgamesh, etc there must have been when they were strictly oral traditions

from The Carols of Halloween - https://medium.com/luminasticity/the-carols-of-halloween-47c...

Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells why won’t they shut up

Being chased by werewolves, ain’t this just my luck

Dashing through the gloom

In a one-horse open cart

Trying to escape the doom

Where Werewolves eat my heart

You had to read the tome

And utter the mad curse

Now if we get home

I’m sure it’s in a hearse

Ohhhh…

Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells why won’t they shut up

Being chased by werewolves, ain’t this just my luck

It’s almost striking to read something not written by AI

Growing up in northern Queensland (Australia) in the 1980's, our primary school boy's version was :

"Jingle Bells, Batman smells, Robin flew away, Wonder Woman lost her boobs - flying TAA."

Context note : TAA or Trans Australia Airlines was a major Australian domestic airline of the time, later merged into Qantas.

RING THEIR BELLS

(aka "The Munchkin's Theme" ) (to the tune of "Jingle Bells")

Slashing through the Orcs

With a good two-handed blade

Over corpses we go

And through the gore we wade

Mace on helmet rings

Making bodies fly

What fun to sing our Slaying Song

And watch these suckers DIE!

https://hack.org/~mc/writings/hackerdom/ring-their-bells.tex...

It's interesting how so many of the versions have an end rhyme with "ay", even when it doesn't match anything in the twisted tune itself.

It's obviously rhyming with the original song, which has "all the way" and "sleigh".

I.e. you need at least the final "ay" in order to properly evoke that phonetic aspect of the original.