Uncle Billy lost his willy

[ThreeLocusts]

Jingle bells, Batman smells/Robin flew away/uncle Billy lost his willy/on the motorway...
(sung to the tune of the Xmas song)

it's one of a handful of rude rhymes my children learned early on in primary school. This was in the Southeast in the 2010s, but a friend who grew up in Manchester in the 1970s said he knew this rhyme too.

I'd just like to get a sense of how widespread and how old it is. Has it been around since the first Batman TV series of the late 50s (I think)? And do you have other examples of disrespectful children's rhymes featuring pop cultural references? Or rude rhymes full stop? I find this one oddly joyful....

We are the Chelsea girls... We wear our hair in curls....

Can't believe we sang this in the 80s age 7 and didn't think anything of it 😂

I’m confident this on won’t be widely known

“We are the Pompey girls
we wear our hair in curls
we have our dungarees
down to our sexy knees

I saw the boy next door
he got me on the floor
he counted 123 and stuck it into me
he counted 1 through 10
and took it out again

my mum was suprised
to see my belly rise
my dad jumped for joy
it was a baby boy”

A delightful rhyme about teen pregnancy there.

It’s insane how we cross posted that

Same, Scottish borders, early 80s.

And 70s South Wales

I’m trying to remember what the polite version was. We sang all that stuff about hang low and throw over your shoulder but this was in front of Brown Owl in the mid seventies. It can’t have been tits or balls.

I think it was “Do your ears hang low”, @WhatWouldJeevesDo.

@artyone - this is the version I know:

I don’t know the Uncle Bulgaria version, but this is what we sang in the Girl Guides, to the tune of John Brown’s Body:

He jumped without a parachute from twenty thousand feet
He jumped without a parachute from twenty thousand feet
He jumped without a parachute from twenty thousand feet
And he ain’t gonna jump no more

CHORUS:
Glory glory what a hell of a way to die
Glory glory what a hell of a way to die
Glory glory what a hell of a way to die
And he ain’t gonna jump no more

He landed on the pavement like a lump of strawberry jam
He landed on the pavement like a lump of strawberry jam
He landed on the pavement like a lump of strawberry jam
And he ain’t gonna jump no more

Chorus

They put him in a match box and they sent him home to mum
They put him in a match box and they sent him home to mum
They put him in a match box and they sent him home to mum
And he ain’t gonna jump no more

Chorus

She put him on the mantel piece for everyone to see
She put him on the mantel piece for everyone to see
She put him on the mantel piece for everyone to see
And he ain’t gonna jump no more

Chorus

She put him on the table when the Vicar came to tea
She put him on the table when the Vicar came to tea
She put him on the table when the Vicar came to tea
And he ain’t gonna jump no more

Chorus

The Vicar spread him on some toast and said what lovely jam
The Vicar spread him on some toast and said what lovely jam
The Vicar spread him on some toast and said what lovely jam
And he ain’t gonna jump no more

Glory glory what a hell of a way to die
Suspended by your braces when you don’t know how to fly
Glory glory what a hell of a way to die
And he ain’t gonna jump no more

My friend Billy
Had a ten foot Willy
He showed it to the girl next door
she thought it was a snake
and hit it with a rake
and now it’s only 4 ft 4 !!!!

I can’t believe I typed that out 🤣🤣🤣🤣

I knew this one as a kid growing up in Wales in the ‘90s/‘00s 😂 Definitely joyful hahahahaha

Jingle bells
Batman smells
Robin laid an egg
Batmobile lost a wheel
And the Joker got away
Hey!

Very similar, Dublin 1970s

Batmobile lost its wheel and found it in a ditch!! Never heard the Willy bit!! But my family weren’t ones for crudeness - well my dad was but my mam probably vitowed him.

Georgie Best Superstar
Wears frilly knickers and a Playtex bra

My dad taught me this (he was a ‘60s kid), only it was 3”4 rather than 4”4 in the version he told me 😂😂😂

Also:

• My friend, Martin, fell down farting, got up blinking, ran away stinking

• I’m not a pheasant plucker, I’m a pheasant plucker’s mate, I’m only plucking pheasants ‘cause the pheasant plucker’s late (the idea is that you say this as fast as you can and you end up saying “I’m not a pleasant fucker” etc 😂

That was the last verse of "When Susie was a Baby", a skipping chant. lt started with verses about Susie as a baby, a schoolchild, then a teenager.

Then the coup de grace:
When Susie was a teenager, a teenager she was
She went Ooh ahh
I lost my bra
I left my knickers in my boyfriends car

But how did a rhyme in, say, the North East also appear in the South West, were people psychic? I can understand how rhymes start but it's the similarity in widely different areas which puzzles me when there wasn't the communication level we have today.

@JudgeJ

Kids moved to different regions?
Kids had cousins?

I think that many young children didn't understand much of what they were singing or they didn't want to admit they didn't! I recall a joke we all laughed at about a brush salesman in Primary school, eventually another girl joined the school and said What's funny about that? and none of us knew! Back in the innocent 1950s.

It was a popular show. I remember watching it as a child in the mid 70s.

Telly Savalas also had a hit song "Who Loves Ya Baby?" He sounded almost as bad as Captain Kirk on vinyl.

@Rass - yes indeed.

Our knickers were only tuppence a pair in the 60s so price was out of date then.