Lexington, KY, native Elmo Shropshire is better known as Dr. Elmo, the whimsical character who has sold more than eleven million copies of the holiday novelty song 'Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer.' After earning a veterinary medicine degree at Auburn University, Dr. Elmo was a veterinarian at Aqueduct, Belmont Park and Saratoga racetracks in New York. He later moved to San Francisco's Bay Area to open his own animal hospital and while moonlighting playing festivals and clubs in a bluegrass band. ...show more

Lexington, KY, native Elmo Shropshire is better known as Dr. Elmo, the whimsical character who has sold more than eleven million copies of the holiday novelty song 'Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer.' After earning a veterinary medicine degree at Auburn University, Dr. Elmo was a veterinarian at Aqueduct, Belmont Park and Saratoga racetracks in New York. He later moved to San Francisco's Bay Area to open his own animal hospital and while moonlighting playing festivals and clubs in a bluegrass band.

In 1979, he introduced 'Grandma' on a San Francisco radio station. It quickly became a regional hit. Dr. Elmo began playing more holiday gigs around town to support the single.

When an activist group, The Gray Panthers, accused him of playing 'ageist music' and showed up to picket one of his shows, the media came out in force, drawing the attention of major labels. In 1983, MTV began airing the self financed video. A year later Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer album appeared on Epic and a new 'Grandma' single was released, this time with 'Percy, the Puny Poinsettia' as the B-side. Dr. ...show less