Just when you thought it was safe to go back in the lilypond...

We'd thought that the people who'd paid for the rights to the Crazy Frog had accepted that they'd milked the craze for all they were going to get.

But, oh no. It's back with a Christmas record, like Cliff Richard only with a strange, stumpy penis which serves no apparent purpose at all.

A PR puff lands in our inbox:

The single comes just in the nick of time during the run-up to the festive season and coincides with George Michael's newly released greatest hits album "Twenty Five".

What a lucky coincidence it is that the Christmas single appears "during the run-up to the festive season", rather than, say, June.

Although George recently missed hitting the Top 10 this week with his latest single "This is Not Real Love" featuring Sugarbabes’ Mutya (it entered the UK singles chart at #15),Crazy Frog's version of'Last Christmas' is likely to get George into the UK Top 10 this Christmas.

We're sure that'll come as a great comfort to George, and not be the sort of tribute which pushes him out to his car with a large bottle of GHB.

There's a half-arsed video too, of course:

The video for Crazy Frog's version of 'Last Christmas' begins when Santa's workshop has been overtaken by evil characters that abduct the jolly bearded one and put him behind bars while they manufacture fake Crazy Frog replica dolls into Christmas presents. To make the toys, the evil ones must obtain blueprints of Crazy Frog. They lure him into Santa's workshop where they attempt to hold him prisoner, but ultimately our green hero reigns triumphant when he botches up their dastardly plans and saves Santa.

Good lord, it's not just half-arsed, but it seems to be containing some sort of unsubtle anti-piracy message as well. Although the details seem a little vague - "evil characters"? Do they mean trolls? Pissed-off elves? Jeffrey Archer? And why do they need blueprints? Don't people just have a look at a real doll and approximate? And if they used the proper tools, and proper plans, and proper stuff, then wouldn't they be proper dolls? More to the point, how is this scheme meant to make money, as Santa doesn't actually charge for the gifts he gives. Wouldn't they have chosen to just make the toys somewhere else so they could flog 'em down the market? It makes no sense.

Obviously, anyone who buys this deserves everything they get, which should, if there's any justice, be absolutely nothing.

music crazy frog