The Dangerous Christmas of Red Riding Hood

This is kind of an odd one. It was the soundtrack to a television Christmas special shown on ABC on Nov. 28, 1965. It takes the classic Little Red Riding Hood story and puts a Yuletide slant on it. And check out this cast list: British actor Cyril Ritchard (at that time known as the definitive Captain Hook from the musical "Peter Pan") as Lone T. Wolf; Liza Minnelli as Red Riding Hood; Sinatra-esque singer Vic Damone as the Woodsman; and the Animals (yes, as in "Eric Burdon and the") as the Wolf Pack. If you like Liza and Cyril, they have most of the songs here and, as would be expected, do a nice job on them. Unfortunately the Animals only have one song here, but it's a fun one nevertheless. I don't know how much the special focused on the Christmas connection, but only three of the songs here reference it. So while I'd call this one only tangentially related to Christmas, I'm counting it anyway!

Hey, I just found out that this special was recently released to DVD, and you can get a copy of it here!

Here is the track list:

1. Overture - Orchestra
2. We Wish the World a Happy Yule - Cyril Ritchard and the Creatures of the Forest
3. My Red Riding Hood - Liza Minnelli
4. Snubbed - Cyril Ritchard
5. Woodman's Serenade/Granny's Gulch/Along the Way - Vic Damone and Liza Minnelli
6. I'm Naive - Liza Minnelli
7. Red Riding Hood Improvisation (Ballet) - Orchestra
8. I'm Naive (Reprise) - Cyril Ritchard
9. We're Gonna Howl Tonight - The Animals
10. Ding-a-Ling Ding-a-Ling - Liza Minnelli and Cyril Ritchard
11. Poor Mouse (Ballet) - Orchestra
12. Granny/Along the Way (Reprise) - Liza Minnelli, Cyril Ritchard, and Vic Damone
13. We Wish the World a Happy Yule - Cast

Click here or here to download!