Over Christmas, I got myself an Octubafest CD, and one of the songs sounded very familiar. “There Is a Tavern in the Town” has portions which sound very similar to the theme song for Animaniacs. The melody accompianing “We’re zany to the max, there’s baloney in our slacks” seems to occur exactly in “There Is a Tavern in the Town”, for instance. Now, “Tavern” is public domain, so there are no questions of copyright violation, but I’m curious: Has the composer(s) of the Animaniacs theme ever specifically acknowledged the borrowing?
There Is A Tavern in the Town is also known as Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes. There is a bit of similarity there in that part of the song, but it’s probably just coincidence if anything else.
It’s not impossible. After all, the melody for The Star-Spangled Banner was taken from an old English drinking song. IIRC, it was called To Anacrion In Heaven