Santa Claus is Coming to Town

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Wikipedia excerpts:

Santa Claus Is Coming to Town (sometimes spelled “Comin'”) (m. J. Fred Coots, w. Haven Gillespie)…was first sung on Eddie Cantor’s radio show in November 1934. It became an instant hit with orders for 100,000 copies of sheet music the next day and over 400,000 copies sold by Christmas. The song is often used to tell children that Santa knows when they’ve been bad or good and that they should be good.

The earliest known recorded version of the song was performed by George Hall and the Hotel Taft Orchestra (featuring Sonny Schuyler on vocals) in 1934. It was mostly an instrumental except for a 35-second vocal by Schuyler. The version shown in the Variety charts of December 1934 was Harry Reser featuring Tom Stacks on vocal. The song was a sheet music hit, reaching #1. The song was also recorded on September 26, 1935, by Tommy Dorsey & His Orchestra .

Harry Reser and his Orchestra, vocal: Tom Stacks, recorded 24 October 1934

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George Hall and the Hotel Taft Orchestra — 1934

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Tommy Dorsey & his Orchestra, vocals by Cliff Weston and Edythe Wright — 26 September 1935

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Bing Crosby and The Andrews Sisters with Vic Schoen and his Orchestra — recorded on 29 September 1943; originally issued on the 78 rpm single Decca 23281, as the B-side of “Jingle Bells”

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Ella Fitzgerald with Frank DeVol and his Orchestra — 1960

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Fred Astaire — from the soundtrack of the animated TV movie Santa Claus Is Comin’ to Town (1970) — Astaire is the voice of the narrator/postal carrier, S.D. Kluger, who is a caricature of Mr. Astaire.