Maybe I’m showing my age a bit here, and if I am, oh well.
Will Ferrell & John C. Reilley have a new video over at Funny or Die for the holidays. It’s a parody of the original David Bowie/Bing Crosby duet of Peace on Earth and Little Drummer Boy from back in the 70’s.
I liked it. That’s not at issue here. I understand parody and this was really well done. Not to mention, highlights them as singers.
But what irritates me is this reaction by Annie Barrett over at Entertainment Weekly.
Using terms like “eerie” and “mind blowing” makes it sound like this was some sort of joke when Bowie and Crosby did it back in the 70’s. It wasn’t. It was a holiday special (which we seemed to have a lot of back then) and, while it was an odd pairing (there’s a Washington Post story that has a lot of detail on how it came together), it created one of the best duets around.
Y’know, Annie. It’s easy to mock something as “weird” or “eerie” when you likely aren’t old enough to know what it meant to those of use who were there or understand that a lot of us watching knew Crosby had died just before this aired, so it had additional meaning. But I’m sorry you don’t get just how cool this duet was for us who saw this the first time around. Because it was really something special.
/rant
Now, that said, here’s both of them. The singing’s better on the original, but Ferrell and Reilley are pretty kick ass.