Australian singles charts:
Snoopy vs The Red Baron entered the Kent charts on 14 January 1967 and was a #1 hit. The song was #3 on the Top 100 of 1967.
Album:
The song is on the 1967 album Snoopy and His Friends.
Songwriters:
Phil Gernhard, Dick Holler
Producers:
Phil Gernhard, John Brumage
Record label of Australian release:
Festival
Songfacts:
This is a novelty song about the imaginary World War I antics of Charlie Brown’s pet beagle in the comic strip Peanuts. It spawned three sequels: The Return of the Red Baron, Snoopy’s Christmas, and Snoopy for President.
There really was a Red Baron. His name was Manfred Albrecht Freiherr von Richthofen (Baron Von Richthofen) and, as the lyrics state, he had 80 confirmed kills as a fighter pilot in World War I. In the song, he meets his demise when Snoopy shoots him down in a dogfight. In real life, he was fatally injured in an air battle over France, where he landed his plane in a beet field and died a short time later. The Red Baron was so respected that the Allies buried him in France with full military honors. So grand was his legend that Peanuts author Charles Schultz devised a storyline pitting him against Snoopy.
Read more: www.songfacts.com/facts/the-royal-guardsmen/snoopy-vs-the-red-baron
Lyrics:
After the turn of the century
In the clear blue skies over Germany
Came a roar and a thunder men had never heard
Like the scream and the sound of a big war bird
Up in the sky, a man in a plane
Baron von Richthofen was his name
Eighty men tried, and eighty men died
Now they’re buried together on the countryside
Click for full lyrics
Also on Bang a Gong: Snoopy’s Christmas
Find more songs to enjoy: Bang a Gong song finder
New to Bang a Gong? Click HERE to learn more about us.