The First Bad Kid: Barry Gordon gets nuttin' for Christmas in 1955, plays gay-subtext teens, nebbishes, nerds, lawyers, and the Quik Bunny

In December 1954, three-year old Barry Gordon made the scene with Art Mooney's "I'm Getting Nuttin' for Christmas (because I've been nuttin' but bad)":

I broke my bat on Johnny's head;
I hid a frog in sister's bed;
I spilled some ink on Mommy's rug;
Bought some gum with a penny slug;
Somebody snitched on me.

Far more mischievous than Dennis the Menace or Peck's Bad Boy of the 1920s, he was a humorous precursor to the threatened or threatening kids whom the adults would fear through the 1960s. Audiences were amazed; the record sold a million copies, and hit #6 on the Billboard pop chart, beating out "Autumn Leaves" and "Love is a Many Splendored Thing."

But you couldn't have a kid miss out on Christmas forever, so they made him record "I Like Christmas" in 1955.  

During the 1950s and 1960s, Barry (who recorded many other songs, with  "Rock Around Mother Goose" and "I Can't Whistle" gradually giving way to "True Love Can Never Die," "Sealed with a Kiss," and "The Girl I Left Behind."  In the days of acid rock and Yellow Submarine, none of them charted.

He made some movies,  including Hands of a Stranger, Pressure Point (with Peter Falk and Sidney Poitier), The Spirit is Willing, and Out of It, in which a high school brain (Barry) buddy-bonds with a jock (John Voight).

Barry was nominated for a Tony for his performance in the Broadway play A Thousand Clowns (adapted for film in 1965), as a gay-vague teenager crushed when his free-spirit guardian (Jason Robards) caves to the establishment.

Barry also made the rounds of tv guest spots: Leave It to Beaver, Davis the Menace, Make Room for Daddy, Jack Benny, and Love American Style (in the 1969 episode "Love and the High School Flop-Out").  Why is he sitting with his hands like that?

He had bad luck with starring roles:

The New Dick Van Dyke Show (1971-74) pushed Dick into a "backstage at a tv studio" premise that his former co-star Mary Tyler Moore was already doing, in one of the most popular tv series of all time.  You can imagine what happened to the lifeless imitation. Dick's muscular son Barry as his announcer failed to incite much audience interest.

Our Barry played a writer on Dick's soap opera as the third season eked by. 

More after the break