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This song is the work of one David Nkrumah Liebe Hart, a religious puppeteer who has apparently made a name for himself by busking at the Hollywood Bowl Museum in Los Angeles. With a singing style not soon forgotten, Hart belts out Christian-Science-inspired songs through his puppets, which include such favorites as "Doug the Dog," "Orangee Bunny Rabbit," "Teddy Eddie" (actually a panda), and ... "Chip the Black Boy."

That's right, "Chip the Black Boy."

If his street performances were the only thing that Hart did, most of us would probably not have heard of him, or even gotten a chance to appreciate his music. Thankfully, he has branched out to public access, by creating a series of programs for children that show up occasionally on cable channels across the country (but apparently not on a regular basis, at least here in Chicago; we just happened to catch this particular program on TV by accident). These shows are apparently all called "Junior Christian Teaching Bible Lesson Program!" (don't forget the final exclamation point), and have a varying roster of guests on them. One of the guests on the particular program that we taped off of Chicago public access features Natasha Alexandrovna, the Russian Madonna. Although with her current hairstyle, she looks a bit more like the Russian Judy Tenuta.

The other human star of this show is a guy by the name of James Quall. This fellow is the stereotypical public access star: painfully unfunny, bumbling and ill-at-ease in front of the camera, and always ready to do his series of "celebrity impersonations" for the kids. Here's his list of impersonations: Paul Lynde and Groucho Marx. And this is for a children's program! What kid of today is going to know who Paul Lynde is?

The format of this show is very simple. One of the puppets talks to the kids for a while, banters with the hosts, and then introduces another one of the puppets with the words "wait until he comes alive." This indicates that Hart, the puppeteer, is going to stop working the first puppet and move over to another puppet. (See, when you're the only puppeteer on a children's program, you have to give yourself some time to move to the next character.) So the first puppet just sits back and stops moving, as if it just had a stroke. Then this second puppet "comes alive," and starts singing in Hart's booming voice. The song goes on for several minutes, then he's done. The human hosts applaud, and then they go on to some scripture reading (interspersed with words from Mary Baker Eddy, of course). But the amazing thing about the scripture reading is that they alternate readings with the puppets! So you get to hear Chip the Black Boy reading scriptures. And that makes the show truly bizarre.

So go ahead and listen to the MP3. What you'll hear is an introduction of Teddy Eddie ("wait until he comes alive"). Then, Teddy Eddie starts singing the song. This goes on for a couple of minutes, and then it's time to end the program. So Hart the puppeteer asks his hosts to say goodbye, specifically prompting Quall to offer the kids some of his famous celebrity impersonations. And what do we get? Some fumbling and mutterings from the host, who apparently has forgotten his own list of impersonations to do. Then he holds up a picture of "Orson Otter," which as you can tell from the picture on the left is completely unseeable on camera. And that's it. The program's over. Goodbye, kids!

This song is on the Bad Music CD in a shortened form (I couldn't fit all of the banter at the end of the program onto the CD), as well as a second song by Orangee Bunny Rabbit. This is one of the few songs on the CD that we were able to find all on our own (special thanks to Amy for having the presence of mind to tape it), after being alerted to the strangeness of this particular children's program by seeing another program at the 2001 Incorrect Music video show. It's not often that one finds a completely unheard-of Bad Musician, and this is as close as we could get. We hope you enjoy it. Wait until he comes alive.

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