Billboard Top 40: "Baby Shark" Hit
It has been a little over one year since the infectious earworm called "Baby Shark" hit the Billboard Top 40 chart. Such an unusual event caused many people to wonder if any other children's song had ever made it on pop music's most prominent list? Well, it is a little known fact (indeed, this is probably the only place that will report this) that there was one prior occurrence.
First, we have to go way back to when the oldies were still newbies. It was a time when you could read about the billiard exploits of Minnesota Fats in the pages of the sports section, watch Fatty Arbuckle at the local cinema, or listen to Fats Domino play the piano on the radio. Some people worried about the effect so many chubby celebrities would have on the health of the country's youth. For that reason, R&B legend and former boxer Jackie Wilson decided to craft a song called "Baby Workout" that would encourage toddlers to stay in tip-top shape. Between burblings, babies could now get in some cardio training as they danced to this catchy, chart-topping tune.
And while the song's suggestion to "put your hands on your hips and let your backbone slip" probably caused the country's children to have chiropractic complications later in life, you can't argue with the results: "Baby Workout" was released in 1964, and only five short years later we landed on the moon.