What's that clown music?

[Otto]

You know exactly what music I'm talking about. That ditty that's stereotypically associated with clowns. You're hearing it in your head right now. What's it called?

[Neidhart]

That would be "Entry of the Gladiators" by Julius Fucik. (Gladiators??)

[MovieMogul]

Here's a snippet.

And yes, it's Gladiators.

[Richard Parker]

Anyone know how it became the clown song?

[BiblioCat]

Oh, man, why did I click on that link?
That music creeps me out. Clowns are seriously scary. I have to go lock the doors now.

::: can't sleep, clowns'll eat me, can't sleep, clowns'll eat me... :::

[Snooooopy]

If there were still gladiators around, and a match began with this music playing, the gladiators would wind up telling the crowd, "We're sorry -- we have to temporarily leave the stadium so we can beat the living daylights out of the guy who wrote this fruity music. On second thought, we're so pissed about this music that we're going to go ahead and fight, THEN beat the living daylights out of the guy. Wait -- was that the point? To goad us into battle? Very clever, I guess, but now I'm so distracted by the reverse psychology that I've just been subjected to that I don't think I'll be able to put on a satisfactory display of my gladiatorial skills. Goddammit, I should have gone into accounting like my dad."

[SPOOFE]

Doot-doot dootle-ootle doot-doot doo-doo Doot-doot dootle-ootle doot-doot doo-doo...

(Just a sampling from my upcoming album, Doot. Eighty minutes of Doot. Doot. It's what's for dinner...)

[Bruce_Daddy]

I thought this was going to be another Nickleback thread.

[ZebraShaSha]

I always have heard it as "Fan Fare" but now that I think about it... well i still do not know... hmm.....

Am I just clowning around?

[MovieMogul]

Originally Posted by ZebraShaSha

I always have heard it as "Fan Fare" but now that I think about it... well i still do not know... hmm.....

Actually, it does have an alternate title: Thunder and Blazes. Uh, yeah, those are the two nature images that immediately come to mind when hearing it.

[MovieMogul]

Originally Posted by SPOOFE

Doot-doot dootle-ootle doot-doot doo-doo Doot-doot dootle-ootle doot-doot doo-doo...

(Just a sampling from my upcoming album, Doot. Eighty minutes of Doot. Doot. It's what's for dinner...)

Sorry, but it looks like somebody beat you to it.

[Governor Quinn]

I'm used to that song being attached to the circus as a whole (such as the equistrian acts), and not just clowns.

[carterba]

Originally Posted by SPOOFE

Doot-doot dootle-ootle doot-doot doo-doo Doot-doot dootle-ootle doot-doot doo-doo...

That's it! You people have stood in my way long enough! I'm going to Clown College!

[moriah]

Originally Posted by SPOOFE

Doot-doot dootle-ootle doot-doot doo-doo Doot-doot dootle-ootle doot-doot doo-doo...

(Just a sampling from my upcoming album, Doot. Eighty minutes of Doot. Doot. It's what's for dinner...)

Grrr: "And now, I'm going to sind the 'doom' song... doom doom doom doom doom doom doom doom doom doom doom doom doom doom doom doom doom doom doom doom doom doom doom doom doom doom doom doom doom doom doom doom doom doom doom doom doom doom doom doom doom doom..." - Invader Zim

[Doomtrain]

Damn you, Otto. Of all the songs you could get stuck in my head, it had to be the clown music.

[Otto]

Sorry pal, but that's the price we sometimes pay for fighting ignorance.

[Revedge]

Ringling Bros, Barnmum and Bailey use Entry of the Gladiators for years as the entry music for their performers. It was a tradition. (They may still do it, but I havn't been to the circus for ages.) It was a sort of theme song and became engrained in everyones brains. Of course when you think of the circus, most think of the clowns first. Ergo, hear the circus music, think of clowns. Most people think it is clown music, but it really is circus music. Particularly Ringling Bros, Barnum and Bailey.

[OpalCat]

Originally Posted by Revedge

Most people think it is clown music, but it really is circus music. Particularly Ringling Bros, Barnum and Bailey.

Huh. I always think of it as circus music. Never associated it with clowns until this thread. Could be because I freakin' hate clowns and try to block their very existence from my mind...

[Lamia]

This board is so great!

Several years back, in my student days, the college redecorated one of the public areas of campus in bright primary colors. This was the subject of many complaints and jokes from students, and I remember some people used to go "Doot-doot dootle-ootle doot-doot doo-doo" when they walked by. My friends and I spent a lunch period trying to come up with the title to that song, to no avail. Even the music majors didn't know. We eventually decided it was probably called something like "Under the Big Top"; I never would have guessed "Entry of the Gladiators".

But if anyone has been wondering, I do know that "The Dracula Pipe Organ Music" is Bach's "Toccata and Fugue in D Minor".

[Liberal]

Trivia note: Elton John used a portion of Gladiators in his Your Sister Can't Twist (But She Can Rock 'N' Roll).

[lachesis]

are you sure you're not also referring to Galop from the Comedians Suite op. 26 by Dmitri Kabalevsky? (you can hear a short clip if you scroll down to its listing on this page ).

[BMalion]

Originally Posted by Lamia

This board is so great!

But if anyone has been wondering, I do know that "The Dracula Pipe Organ Music" is Bach's "Toccata and Fugue in D Minor".

No, it isn't.

The "Toccata and Fugue in D minor" has a connection to Halloween by it's spooky sound and by the use of it to score the many villianous-phantom-organ-playing guys. It's almost cliche' now, well, I guess it is cliche'. James Mason as Captain Nemo played it on board his Nautilaus (a pipe-oragn on a submarine!). The Phantom of the Opera played it in one of those movies (I think). Jack Lemmon as Professor Fate in "The Great Race" played it on his player-pipe-organ as a spoof of movie-villians.


The 1930's "Dracula" starring Bela Lugosi used Tsaikovski's "Swan Lake" as it's eerie score.

[Lamia]

Originally Posted by BMalion

No, it isn't.

...

The 1930's "Dracula" starring Bela Lugosi used Tsaikovski's "Swan Lake" as it's eerie score.

That may be so, but many people think of "Toccata and Fugue in D Minor" as "The Dracula Pipe Organ Music". I know, because I was always the one who had to tell friends what the real title was. It might be better to call it "The Old Horror Movie Pipe Organ Music", but for some reason it often seems to have a mental association with Dracula/vampires. (Perhaps it was used in one of the other old vampire films?) And not only people I know, either -- I just checked a certain mp3 sharing service and found many copies of the piece with some reference to "Dracula" in the file name.

[Neidhart]

I always associated it with Dr. Frankenstein noodling around on the organ while waiting for Igor to come back with a load of brains.

[Jenaroph]

Originally Posted by Snooooopy

If there were still gladiators around, and a match began with this music playing, the gladiators would wind up telling the crowd, "We're sorry -- we have to temporarily leave the stadium so we can beat the living daylights out of the guy who wrote this fruity music. On second thought, we're so pissed about this music that we're going to go ahead and fight, THEN beat the living daylights out of the guy. Wait -- was that the point? To goad us into battle? Very clever, I guess, but now I'm so distracted by the reverse psychology that I've just been subjected to that I don't think I'll be able to put on a satisfactory display of my gladiatorial skills. Goddammit, I should have gone into accounting like my dad."

I'm funny how? Funny like a clown? I amuse you? I make you laugh? I'm here to f*ckin' amuse you?

[Max Carnage]

Originally Posted by Neidhart

I always associated it with Dr. Frankenstein noodling around on the organ while waiting for Igor to come back with a load of brains.

I usually prefer to put on some Barry White when I'm noodling around on my organ.

[Jinx]

Unless you mean how their shoes sometimes squeak, I've never heard of clown music...maybe I'm blessed?

Could you mean the well-known circus music instead? It's often played as a duet on piano, and it has a like a Ragtime sound to it. Too bad no one set it to words! Again, we must wonder how it became associated with the circus!

As a clue to those who know tinker around on the ivories, the duet optional part of this piece is played entirely on the ebonies!

The (the better-known) solo part goes like this:

Starting one octave above "Middle C" with: ping ping ping pa ping-ping-ping,
Next, mimic one octave below "Middle C": Ping Ping Ping Pa Ping-Ping-Ping,
Next, stay in the same octave: Ping-Ping-Ping,
Next, mimic up one octave above "Middle C": ping-ping-ping,
Then end in current octave, playing: ping ping ping ba bump-bump-bump!
(The last set of notes can be split to start in a treble octave and end in bass.)

Ah, yes! Like nails to a chalkboard...
- Jinx

[YoudNeverGuess]

Haha. I was just working this tune out in my head in tonic solfa on the way to the bus stop yesterday. It's

doh' ti ta ti ta la lo so fi so
la lo so la so fi fa mi ri mi
so re re di re so re re di re
ti do di re ri mi fa fi so si la ti la so (and repeat...)

Yes I am a music nerd...

[BMalion]

Originally Posted by Lamia

That may be so, but many people think of "Toccata and Fugue in D Minor" as "The Dracula Pipe Organ Music". I know, because I was always the one who had to tell friends what the real title was. It might be better to call it "The Old Horror Movie Pipe Organ Music", but for some reason it often seems to have a mental association with Dracula/vampires. (Perhaps it was used in one of the other old vampire films?) And not only people I know, either -- I just checked a certain mp3 sharing service and found many copies of the piece with some reference to "Dracula" in the file name.

bolding mine

"Many people think..."

is not an excuse for ignorance.

People who name MP3 files are not under any obligation to be accurate I suspect.

Sorry, if my answer was pedantic. Yes, I agree, the above-mentioned fugue is often associated with all things horror. I was trying to get a little more detailed into the names of specific compositions and where they were used, not just report where people think they were used. I thought that was in the spirit of the OP.

By the way, I'm really keen on the idea that clowns and horror movies seem to just flow together don't they?

I have checked my horror movie archives and have not yet found Bach's Toccata used in a movie with Dracula in it. I'll check further.

[UrbanChic]

If you don't mind the hijack, what's the music that's played during plate spinning routines. C'mon, you know it. It's kind of hectic and fast and, well, plate spinny.

I used to know it years ago and I think it has the word sword in the title, but I've long since forgotten it.

[BMalion]

Aha! found another one...

Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde (1941)
soundtrack includes: Bach's Toccata and Fugue in D Minor

[BMalion]

Originally Posted by JuanitaTech

If you don't mind the hijack, what's the music that's played during plate spinning routines. C'mon, you know it. It's kind of hectic and fast and, well, plate spinny.

I used to know it years ago and I think it has the word sword in the title, but I've long since forgotten it.

Khachaturian's "Sabre Dance"

[Lamia]

Originally Posted by BMalion

"Many people think..."

is not an excuse for ignorance.

I'm sorry, but I don't see where the ignorance comes in. I didn't claim the piece appeared in any particular vampire film, much less the Lugosi version of Dracula. I only know that people have sometimes asked in my presence what "that Dracula pipe organ music is", hummed it a bit, and I've been able to identify it as "Toccata and Fugue in D Minor". As best as I can tell, when people refer to "The Dracula Pipe Organ Music" they always mean "Toccata and Fugue in D Minor". I don't know why this is, but I thought somone out there in SDMB readerland might think the same thing and be interested in knowing what the piece is actually called.

Originally Posted by JuanitaTech

If you don't mind the hijack, what's the music that's played during plate spinning routines. C'mon, you know it. It's kind of hectic and fast and, well, plate spinny.

I used to know it years ago and I think it has the word sword in the title, but I've long since forgotten it.

You almost have it -- it's Aram Khachaturian's "Sabre Dance", from the Gayane ballet.

[Lamia]

I'll just throw this one out there since it's the only other famous but often unidentified musical piece I can name: "Here Comes the Bride" is the bridal chorus from Wagner's opera Lohengrin. In the opera it actually comes immediately after the wedding, when the couple is being escorted to the bridal chamber, not when Elsa is walking down the aisle. (The wedding itself doesn't actually appear in the opera.)

Given how things work out for Elsa and Lohengrin it seems like kind of an unlucky choice for a real wedding, but somehow it became traditional.

[BMalion]

You're right, Lamia, you did not say that it was Dracula music, only that it was thought of as Dracula music, I was just trying to be detail oriented


Another one: The solem, somber music played during graduation exercises is "Pomp and Circumstance" by Elgar.

[Zebra]

Please people!

It goes

Dunt Dunt digga-digga dunt dunt da-dunt
Dunt Dunt digga-digga dunt dunt da-dunt
Dunt! digga dunt dunt Dunt! digga dunt dunt
digga-digga digga-digga digga-digga dunt dunt

[Futile Gesture]

Parp! Parp!
whhhheeeeooooowoooooooooaaaaaaaap!

Sorry, this thread simply wouldn't be complete without a clown air horn and a swanee whistle.

[The Scrivener]

And the Benny Hill theme? "Yakety-Sax". Come to think of it, doesn't this theme incorporate a bit of "Entry of the Gladiators" in its bridge section?

[Garfield226]

The Monty Python music is John Phillip Sousa's "The Liberty Bell."

...my little contribution...

[Liberal]

Originally Posted by Zebra

Please people!

It goes

Dunt Dunt digga-digga dunt dunt da-dunt
Dunt Dunt digga-digga dunt dunt da-dunt
Dunt! digga dunt dunt Dunt! digga dunt dunt
digga-digga digga-digga digga-digga dunt dunt

I recall it as

Doop doop doobie doobie doop doop doo-doop
Doop doop doobie doobie doop doop doo-doop
Doop! doobie doo-doop Doop! doobie doo-doop
Doobie doobie doobie doobie doobie doobie doo-doop

[Algernon]

And I paid to read threads like this?!?!?!





(I love it.)

[Leaper]

I always associate the Toccata in Fugue with Phantom of the Opera. I NEVER heard of it in association with Dracula.

I remember my high school chorus teacher taking us to the school chapel to break in the new organ, and he played a bit of the Toccata at our request.

[Lamia]

Originally Posted by BMalion

You're right, Lamia, you did not say that it was Dracula music, only that it was thought of as Dracula music, I was just trying to be detail oriented

Okay, no worries then.

To continue throwing out titles, Carl Orff's "O Fortuna" from Carmina Burana is a good one I learned about back in music class. It's the dramatic Latin choral piece often used for medieval battle scenes...or for introducing a new line of powerful automobiles or athletic shoes. Although it sounds trumphant, it's about cursing the cruelty of fate. Oh, and while the lyrics do come from a medieval poem, Orff was a 20th century composer.

[tracer]

Originally Posted by Leaper

I always associate the Toccata in Fugue with Phantom of the Opera. I NEVER heard of it in association with Dracula.

I always associated it with haunted houses. And Vincent Price.

[Zebra]

Originally Posted by Libertarian

I recall it as

Doop doop doobie doobie doop doop doo-doop
Doop doop doobie doobie doop doop doo-doop
Doop! doobie doo-doop Doop! doobie doo-doop
Doobie doobie doobie doobie doobie doobie doo-doop

You never played a wind instrament did you?


The hard T at the end of Dunt Dunt is much more like the tounging that you would have to do while playing.

[tracer]

All right, here's another request for the title of a piece of music that everybody knows the tune of but no one knows the title to:

THE ANAMANA SONG

You know ...
"Anamana, doot doo doo doo doo,
Anamana, doot doo doo, doo,
Anamana, doot doo doo doo doo,
Doo doo doo,
Doo doo doo,
Doo doo doo, doo doo
Doot doot doo doot, doo!"

They used to have a muppet sing this song on Sesame Street (before Sesame Street became "All Elmo, All the Time"). This song also appeared in a couple of episodes of Benny Hill.

But what the heck is the real title?!

[Lamia]

Originally Posted by tracer

THE ANAMANA SONG

You know ...
"Anamana, doot doo doo doo doo,
Anamana, doot doo doo, doo,
Anamana, doot doo doo doo doo,
Doo doo doo,
Doo doo doo,
Doo doo doo, doo doo
Doot doot doo doot, doo!"

They used to have a muppet sing this song on Sesame Street (before Sesame Street became "All Elmo, All the Time"). This song also appeared in a couple of episodes of Benny Hill.

But what the heck is the real title?!

Wow, I'm better at this than I thought, because I can do this one too! It's "Mah-Na Mah-Na", by Piero Umiliani. It originally appeared in, of all things, a 1968 documentary about drugs, suicide, and the sexual underworld called Sweden: Heaven or Hell.

[Askance]

Originally Posted by Zebra

The hard T at the end of Dunt Dunt is much more like the tounging that you would have to do while playing.

Stop it, you're getting me hot! I have to go now.



Sentences like that are why we paid for this service.

[Askance]

OK, what about the shave-and-a-haircut piece, where does that come from? You know:

Dutt dada da da ... dutt dutt!

[Lute Skywatcher]

Originally Posted by Algernon

And I paid to read threads like this?!?!?!

No, you paid to post in threads like this.