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?