I Want a Hippopotamus for Christmas - Joanie Bartels - MP3 instrumental karaoke

The Christmas novelty song "I Want a Hippopotamus for Christmas" was originally written by American composer John Rox in the early 1950s. The first version of the song was recorded in 1953 by child star Gayla Peevey, who was 10 years old at the time. Contrary to popular belief, the track was not recorded as a fundraiser to help the local zoo get a hippo, but the child singer did participate in the campaign after the song became a hit, donating a 700-pound baby hippo named Matilda to the Oklahoma City Zoo. Before its release as a commercial single on November 11, 1953, Gayla Peevey performed "I Want a Hippopotamus for Christmas" on The Ed Sullivan Show. In the decades that followed, the song became a Christmas classic and was covered multiple times by several other artists, including Captain Kangaroo, Malcolm T. Elliot, and New Zealand-based singer Joanie Bartels, who put out a new version in 1994.