Rosie O'Donnell & Elmo's Iconic Christmas Duet
"Do you hear what Elmo hears?" I do!
In 1999, two of the decade’s biggest stars came together to create an iconic Christmas bop I listen to every holiday season.
The two people in question are, of course, Rosie O’Donnell and Elmo. The song is “Do You Hear What I Hear?”
I grew up in a Rosie family and a Christmas music family, so when Rosie released A Rosie Christmas in 1999, my mom snatched a copy and played it all the time. She also purchased 2000’s followup, Another Rosie Christmas. Rosie’s duet partners on the two albums include Celine Dion, Cher, Billy Joel, *NSYNC, Lauryn Hill, Elton John, Ricky Martin, and Angelica Pickles from The Rugrats. Destiny’s Child and Donna Summer were spared Rosie’s vocals on their tracks (though both songs mention her by name). I have put both albums into one Spotify playlist for your listening pleasure.
The albums are so strange that, before I found them on Spotify a few years ago, I felt like a hallucinated them. The two songs I had crystal clear memories of were the above Elmo duet and “Nuttin’ For Christmas,” which Rosie sang with Smash Mouth, and is not about what you think it is based on the title.
“But Victoria,” you’re saying. “Rosie is not exactly…..a vocalist.” I will remind you that she has been in multiple Broadway productions, including Grease and Fiddler On The Roof (which inspired a joke in one of my favorite SNL sketches of all time), but it’s true singing is not in her top 5 strengths (which are comedy, acting, having opinions, appreciating Broadway, and making Donald Trump mad before it was cool). In a lot of the Christmas tracks Rosie does her best to get out of the way, sticking to harmonies and back ups while the professionals handle it.
But “Do You Hear What I Hear” is not one of those songs! Rosie sings lead, and Elmo does adorable backups, changing the lyrics to his perfect little Elmo-isms. “Do you see what I see?” becomes “Do you see what Elmo sees?” At the end of the song, Elmo vocalizes for a couple seconds, and it’s so sweet and joyful. Maybe this song stayed with me all these years because Elmo was the most famous person, to me, on the album, but there’s something uniquely magical about this version that’s hard to quantify. Whitney Houston of course crushed the vocals on this track with her version, but this one really captures the child-like wonder of Christmas. Do you hear what I hear? Do you know what’s happening? There was a time when you didn’t, when every moment launched a million questions that could have magical answers.
Rosie was probably my favorite celebrity as a kid. She was positioned as someone who was for both children and adults. She was in A League of Their Own but also The Flintstones, both deeply iconic movies to me. She was the coolest adult in Harriet The Spy and voiced one of the animals in Tarzan. She hosted every Nickelodeon Kids’ Choice Awards from 1996 to 2003; I was outraged when they finally replaced her.
It’s not clear to me when exactly I watched her talk show as a kid — wasn’t I at school? — but it looms large in my memories of the ‘90s. Rosie would have cool people on, and yes, sometimes those people were Muppets. She also had all the Broadway shows on, letting them perform their elaborate set pieces. Imagine being friends with people on Broadway!
In 2019 I read Ladies Who Punch, a history of The View. The author clearly hates Rosie and thinks she was an unhinged menace on the set of that show, which she joined briefly in 2006, and again in 2014. But honestly, his attempts at slandering her only made me love her more. Even in his hatred, he couldn’t help but point out that The Rosie O’Donnell Show was a huge innovation and basically invented the type of show Jimmy Fallon’s Tonight Show is. It was late night in daytime. Thinking about it, I’m surprised Jimmy hasn’t fully copied Rosie and released his own Christmas album, A Jimmy Christmas (not that I want him to!).
Rosie’s Christmas albums are deranged. There are so many original songs, many of them, if not terrible, then very weird. She introduces “Little Drummer Boy” with a very serious message to “all the kids out there.” Ricky Martin’s “Ay, Ay, Ay It’s Christmas” blends sexism and the Spanish language in a way that feels very late ‘90s. Billy Porter goes off on “O Holy Night,” which is great but is deeply out of place.
And yet. I am so fond of these shenanigans. When I was a kid, Rosie seemed like the coolest, funniest, most interesting person in the world. I didn’t really know about fatphobia and homophobia, so it all seemed natural. Why wouldn’t she be a superstar?
Of course my understanding of Rosie has evolved since then. Her public persona has changed, for better and worse. The Rosie of the ‘90s was purposefully apolitical in order to appeal to adults and kids in equal measure.
But I think America is ready for the Rosie-ssaince. Give me a big budget Rosie comedy. Someone make a 6-part podcast about her life. I’ll read a big memoir and watch Oprah interview her on Apple TV+ and I’ll come back asking for more.