I've been looking for the original Gemmy Singing Santa for such a long time and now I have finally found one! I found him on an auction site based in England and won him for £60 and then had him shipped to Northern Ireland. He was in good cosmetic and mechanical shape (or so I thought at the time), just a bit dusty and attic dirt on him.
This is the model which sings 'Santa Clause Is Coming To Town' instead of 'We Wish You A Merry Christmas' and is quite difficult to find. Apparently, this model was a UK exclusive back in either 2002 or 2003 and is quite unusual as these models usually have a louder dancing mechanism, whereas this one doesn't. The following is a more in-depth look on the Santa.
I enjoyed him for a couple of days when suddenly, one of the poles holding the top frame with the shoulders and neck came loose and fell down into his leg. This then caused the issue shown in the Body Frame Position video in my Santa playlist. So, I opened him up and had a look, things that needed to be fixed where the speed dial, neck movement and the pole. Thankfully the neck was just a loose wire, possibly caused by the pole coming loose, I was unable to fix the speed dial and after receiving a spares Santa from 'Haunted Skull' on YT, it still didn't work on his, so I'm putting it down to being a fault on these early models.
Unfortunately, I'm still unable to fix the pole 100%, as the pole is very difficult to get through the spring as it becomes very taut and tense and strong as it's meant to use the poles for storage. In this video at some point during the first song ending and second beginning something weird happens, he begins to dance faster and more rigidly so not sure what's happened now but no doubt he will need to be repaired again...
Anyway, I also show off the Microphone and Auxiliary connection functions in this video as not too many people show this off. Enjoy, hopefully he works again next year! haha.