Unfortunately I dont remeber much from this episode but it took place in an opera house. Bugs was the conductor and made the opera singer(male) hold a note for about 5 minutes. I can pretty much hum the entire song and you’d all know if if you heard it, but I have no idea what the name of it is. Is it an actual song or just made up for the cartoon? All I can say is that it sounds Italian. Does anybody know what the hell I’m talking about and, if so, do you know where I could find a recording of this tune?
It isn’t from The Marriage of Figaro, is it? That’s what immediately popped in my head, and now it’s stuck there!
Figaro’s big aria, “Largo al factotum”, from Rossini’s Barber of Seville (one of these days, I’m gonna seach for a translation of that - keeps slipping my mind.)
Fiiiiii-ga-ro!
Fiiiiii-ga-ro!
Fiiiiii-ga-ro!
Fiiiiii-ga-roFiiiiii-ga-roFiiiiii-ga-roFiiiiii-ga-roFiiiiii-ga-roFiiiiii-ga-roFiiiiii-ga-roFiiiiii-ga-ro!
[hushed voice]
Leopold!
[/hushed voice]
Love that part!
Hell, I loved the whole cartoon!
Screech-Owl, You Da Man!!! Andyman, you were on the right track, though. Thanks.
Da WoMan!!! But that’s okay. Anything for a Bugs Bunny/classical music aficianado.
“Oh Bwunhilda! You’re so wovewy.”
“Yes, I know it, I can’t help it.”
[sub]LEOPOLD!!![/sub]
I’m not positive, but I tend to think that’s not it. I know Bugs Bunny did the Figaro bit once, but he was actually dressed up as a barber putting tonic and stuff on Elmer Fudd’s head. I have the Bugs Bunny & Road Runner Movie with the “Leopold!” episode on tape at home, so I’ll check it tonight and let you know for sure (it should be listed in the credits).
The cartoon with bugs taking his revenge on the opera singer is Long Haired Hare, directed by Chuck Jones in 1949. There were lots of snippets of the opera singer, Giovanni Jones, practicing different pieces, so it’s hard to be sure which one you mean. But Figaro’s aria was in this cartoon, not The Rabbit of Seville. After Bugs is provoked beyond his limit (“Of course you realize, dis means war!”) he replaces Giovanni’s throat spray with liquid alum (I always wondered exactly what that was when I was a kid.) and the nice, fat opera singer starts singing “Fiiii-ga-ro” as his head gets smaller and smaller.
my favorite is still “Kill da wabbit, kill da waaa-bit…”
jb
Carl Stalling loved to slide references to the classics in most of the cartoons for which he composed. He was particularly fond of Rossini, but I’d love to find a list of the references he used–and reused.
Some of them have literally been turned into icons themselves. The opening bars of Peer Gynt are now synonymous with the setting “morning in the country,” largely due to Stalling’s work.
It is from the Long Haired Hare, as stated above. The character is Giovani Jones (Chuck having fun again), and you can get the music here: http://www.nonstick.com/sounds/
I think this aria is used as animated cartoon audio shorthand for “opera,” much as a Brunhilde outfit (pigtails, breastplate and horned helmet) is a visual shorthand.
Wasn’t there an MGM “Droopy Dog” cartoon which also tortured a singer (the bulldog, Droopy’s nemesis) engaged in performing this piece?
NPR covered the Warner Bros. cartoon music for its NPR 100 list.
IIRC (and naturally, I can’t find the cite for this information), the references to “Leopold” in the cartoon are to Leopold Stokowski (1882-1977), the American composer and piano teacher. If I’m wrong, please tell me.
Robin
Ike, you’re thinking of “Magical Maestro” (1952), directed by Tex Avery. The opera singer was the bulldog foe of Droopy, but it wasn’t a Droopy cartoon. Instead, the dog was tortured by a wolf/magician, who disguised himself as the conductor in order to torture the opera singing dog. I loved the part when the dog was changed into different style singers (country, folk, Hawaiian, etc.) in mid song.
Magical Maestro
I don’t believe Droppy ever appeared in this cartoon. There was a magician (a wolf?) and his rabbits that were tomenting a snooty opera singer (the bulldog - normally seen as Droopy’s nemesis). The magician took the regular conductor’s place (IIRC, a lion) and the wolf took the lion’s mane [sterotypical touselled hair of wild-eyed conductors] as a disguise :rolleyes:. Anyway, the magician, using his magic wand as a conducting baton, would create odd scenes with this tenor: e.g., turning him into a little boy singing “A-Tisket, A Tasket”, a Polysenian dancer singing “Hawaiian War Chant”, and Carmen Miranda (complete with red lips, high heels and fruit basket on head) singing “Mama somethinginSpanish”. Meanwhile the rabbits would appear on stage with the tenor in various costumes. Ending - the magician is discovered, the tenor grabs the magic wand, and subjects the wolf to the same torments in fast pace.
Dammit, I gotta learn to type faster.
BTW, while Giovanni Jones did sing bits of “The Barber of Seville”, the song that (literally) brought down the house was “Beautiful Galathea Overture”, written by Franz von Suppé.
Van, you owe it to yourself to rent this cartoon. One of my fondest cinema memories is laughing myself silly at this cartoon in the Greenway Cinema, Houston. The look on Giovanni’s face as he holds that note is priceless.
Welcome to my shop,
Let me cut your mop,
Let me shave your crop
Daaaaaaaaintily, daaaaaaaaaaintily
And who could forget
- O, carrots are divine,
You get a dozen for a dime–
It’s maaa-aaaa-aaaaaaaaaa-gic*
Has nothing to do with the OP, but I enjoyed them.
My fave was the song about “that ol’ shotgun”, but I can’t find or remember it either. Anyone?
(sorry hijack- but since the OP was answered…)
Ah! Thanks, guys…MAGICAL MAESTRO’s exactly what I was thinking of.
Msrobyn: Stokowski is actually best-remembered as the conductor of the Philadelphia Orchestra from the teens through the early 1940s, and for being the conductor in Disney’s FANTASIA, and for boffing Greta Garbo.
I don’t think he ever taught piano, and I’m not sure if he ever composed…he DID write some rather bombastic orchestrations of Bach keyboard pieces.
Okay, to expand on this - what are the ORIGINAL lyrics of this song?!? It’s been bothering me for years.
And another Bugs Bunny song/music ID please - there is some recurring music (I call it ‘industrial’ for want of a better word), mostly when there is some sort of machinery in the scene - IIRC, the canning factory in one of the “Goofy Gophers” short where they are trying to reclaim their ‘stolen’ vegetables; another scene where Porky Pig (as a farmer) assembles a crude robot to terminate Bugs. Is this a Carl Stalling piece? I am sure I have heard it elsewhere within another piece of music, but again, another case of ‘what the heck is that piece?’.
warmgun
Hey! Stop! Look out!
You’re gonna hurt someone
With that old shotgun,
<beat>
Hey, what’s up, Doc?
<together>
We really mean it!
What’s…
<dance interlude>
Up…
<dance interlude>
Doc!
Great, now I’m going to be humming “Oh, we’re the boys in the chorus!” all afternoon!
Here’s someone who’s compiled a list of lyrics. Maybe one of your favorites is listed.