There is indeed a live version of this song in which the singers try out the styles of various other singers at the end, but there's also a studio version on a Doctor Demento CD in which they just sing it straight (to turn a phrase ironically). Each version has its own merits, as the live version allows them to yuck it up with the audience, but the studio version is sung much more mournfully, making its theme that much more ludicrous.
The humor of this song comes from the bizarre juxtaposition of things that don't usually go together, in this case gayness and Eskimos. Not too many people think of Eskimo culture as being particularly homoerotic in any way, and the rather ascetic lifestyle we tend to imagine Eskimos living doesn't leave much room for the kind of flamboyancy we usually attribute to gay subcultures.
Hence the jokes about the whaleskin tights and the rubber fetish: where could an Eskimo possibly develop extravagant fetishes like that? Likewise, the North Pole is the only even vaguely phallic concept that one can associate with Eskimo culture, so it's funny to hear anyone claiming that this tenuous connection of the North Pole to homoeroticism somehow allows him to "see" it even though it's a purely abstract object.
How any of this is possible is thus left entirely to our imagination, where the explanation is bound to be far more hilarious than any account the singer can give of it.
There is indeed a live version of this song in which the singers try out the styles of various other singers at the end, but there's also a studio version on a Doctor Demento CD in which they just sing it straight (to turn a phrase ironically). Each version has its own merits, as the live version allows them to yuck it up with the audience, but the studio version is sung much more mournfully, making its theme that much more ludicrous.
The humor of this song comes from the bizarre juxtaposition of things that don't usually go together, in this case gayness and Eskimos. Not too many people think of Eskimo culture as being particularly homoerotic in any way, and the rather ascetic lifestyle we tend to imagine Eskimos living doesn't leave much room for the kind of flamboyancy we usually attribute to gay subcultures.
Hence the jokes about the whaleskin tights and the rubber fetish: where could an Eskimo possibly develop extravagant fetishes like that? Likewise, the North Pole is the only even vaguely phallic concept that one can associate with Eskimo culture, so it's funny to hear anyone claiming that this tenuous connection of the North Pole to homoeroticism somehow allows him to "see" it even though it's a purely abstract object.
How any of this is possible is thus left entirely to our imagination, where the explanation is bound to be far more hilarious than any account the singer can give of it.