"Green Chri$tma$" is a comedy single written and performed by Stan Freberg and released by Capitol Records in 1958 (catalog number F 4097). Musical arrangement and direction is made by Billy May, and performed by the Capitol Records house orchestra. Other vocal performances are by Daws Butler, Marvin Miller, Will Wright, and the Jud Conlon Chorale. The title is wordplay on the phrase "green Christmas", a Christmas with no snow, with "green" taking on a double meaning of the green ink uniformly used on U.S. currency at that time (and still predominant today). This and the replacement of each "s" in "Christmas" with a U.S. dollar sign refer to the theme of the sketch, the over-commercialization of Christmas. The sketch adapts two characters from Charles Dickens' 1843 novella A Christmas Carol, Ebenezer Scrooge (Freberg) and Bob Cratchit (Butler). The single developed substantial popularity despite efforts from the advertising agencies of the era to suppress its release and promotion through the usual channels such as radio, print media and television (a few radio stations defied their sales departments, enough for the song to become a regional hit, as high as #3 on Los Angeles radio charts). Plot Scrooge, the head of an unnamed advertising agency, has gathered a group of clients to discuss tying their products into Christmas. One attendee questions this: Bob Cratchit, owner of a spice company. He was planning to send Christmas cards with a simple message of "Peace on Earth, Good Will Toward Men." Scrooge extols the practice of exploiting Christmas for profit, including an over-the-top medley of parodies of popular Christmas songs entitled "Deck the Halls with Advertising" that includes an advertisement for "Tyn-E-Tim Chestnuts" that borrows heavily from cigarette advertisements (including "Winston tastes good like a cigarette should") and a toothpaste commercial. Scrooge says, "Christmas has two s's in it, and they're both dollar signs." A disheartened Cratchit counters by reminding Scrooge "Whose birthday we're celebrating," but Scrooge never budges from his position that the true meaning of Christmas "went out with button shoes" and that it is now nothing more than "a sales curve. Wake up, Cratchit. It's later than you think." Message Green Chri$tma$ is a scathing indictment of the commercialization of Christmas, with references of Christmas-themed advertising by Coca-Cola and Marlboro cigarettes, among others. The names of the characters are taken from A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens, as is one of