I discern parts of “The Merry-Go-Round Broke Down” in Professor Longhair’s “Crawfish Fiesta.” Is it possible that Professor Longhair actually viewed a Looney Tunes before recording his tune in 1979? Or did the passage well up from the collective unconscious at different times, much as the idea of natural selection occurred to Darwin first and Wallace later?
Thanx for posting the link, but, um, next time put it in the Reply, not the thread title, okay? 
Don’t worry, a mod will be along in a minute to edit it and fix it. 
http://www.straightdope.com/mailbag/mmerriemelodie.html
There is such a thing as “subconscious plagiarism”, so I suppose it’s possible that there’s a snippet of a Looney Tunes song in Crawfish Fiesta. I would hardly suppose that Prof. Longhair had been living at the bottom of a mine shaft ever since the 1940s and had never gone to the movies or heard that music.
So edited. So done.
The song existed before cartoons, it appears.
Also some things about the column:
-“Of all of these, ‘The Merry-Go-Round Broke Down’ is probably the most famous of all of these songs–or, at least, the one we most directly associate with cartoons.” Really? I thought “Merrily We Roll Along” would be the one, since (I believe) there were more Merrie Melodies produced than Looney Tunes.
-The list ends at 1943. In fact, both songs were used until 1963, when they were replaced on both series with an abstract rendition of “Merry-Go-Round” until the studio closed in 1969.
Do you mean that “Crawfish Fiesta” is an old song? I checked the Professor Longhair discography, and it appears that he wrote the song circa 1979. (This is simply in the interest of tracking down some common origins of melodies.) I heard the tune within “Crawfish Fiesta” some years ago, and I wondered about the origins. My guess is that the Professor heard the melody through watching cartoons in the period during which his fame was eclipsed and he worked as a sweeper in a barbershop in New Orleans before he was rediscovered.
Comments? Thanks much.
P.S. Unconscious plagiarism? See George Harrison and “My Sweet Lord.” Can’t imagine that George was doing any overt plagiarizing at the time.
This may not technically qualify as a Looney Tunes theme, but who can forget “This Is It,” the theme from the old Bugs Bunny/Road Runner Show on ABC. (AAAARGHH I forget who wrote it – I just had it here last week!)
“Overture / Curtains, lights / This is it / The night of nights / No more rehearsing and nursing a part / We know every part by heart. / Overture / Curtains, lights / This is it / To hit the heights (?) / And, oh, what heights we’ll hit / On with the show, THIS IS IT!”
This sticks in my mind even firmer than the Ballad of Jed Clampett.
Couldn’t quite get this from the report: did “Merrily We Roll Along” (the Tobias/Mencher/Cantor version) actually have lyrics? Or was it just an instrumental piece playing with the original nursery tune?
No, I mean “Merry-Go-Round Broke Down” is an old song.
It was sung by a cartoon version of Cantor in the 1935 cartoon “Billboard Frolics”. I can post the lyrics when it shows up on the “Acme Hour” again. Don’t know if those are the original lyrics, though.
You know, some of us don’t know these melodies by title. Can you sing a few bars?
Sure–“Merrily we roll along” goes like this:
“Merrily we go along
dah dah dah dah dah
Dat dah dah dah dah DAH!”
Seriously, here’s a link to further info:
And here’s a link to the Looney Tunes theme:
http://themes.editthispage.com/stories/storyReader$129
(That’s the “Merrily we roll along” theme.)
CWB
The segment in “Billboard Frolics” is used again in “Toy Town Hall” (Merrie Melodies, 1936), which was on the Acme Hour tonight. Here’s what the cartoon Cantor sang:
GoldmanHI posted these later lyrics:
That should be “This is it / we’ll hit the heights.” It’s rephrased in the very next line.
Meanwhile, I’m wondering how “The Merry-go-round Broke Down” could have preceeded the show, since the only lyrics I know of are
Was some other name originally in the place of the esteemed Mr. Duck?
Thanks, rowrbazzle!
I did a bit of searching on Google Groups after my earlier post and found the lyrics shown below (only first verse is shown here).
The source said the “Billboard Frolics” version mentioning Rubinoff was a parody (Rubinoff was on Cantor’s radio show IIRC).
Unfortunately, the lines don’t seem to match the music. After the first couple of lines I can’t sing along to the cartoon theme. Maybe the theme is abridged.
-altor
Merrily we roll along, my honey and me,
Verily there’s no one half as happy as we.
Thought we’re twice as poor as mice, Say what do we care?
For we’ve been so wealthy in the love that we share.
Merrily we roll along while facing the sun,
Verily our slogan is “Say don’t we have fun?”
We live in style with a smile and a song
As we merrily roll along.
Good job, altor!
Hmm, I can fit your lyrics to the tune almost perfectly - one note to a syllable works fine for the first 4 lines (and further - see below). Where does it stop working for you?
My guess is that lines 5 and 6 have exactly the same melody as 1 and 2. The melody for line 7 doesn’t appear in the opening music and is probably different from 3, so that’ll have to remain unknown for now. The final line can be matched to the last phrase of the music starting with the word “merrily”, assuming that the “As we” is sung on two quick notes leading up to that phrase.
Well, like John said in his Staff Report, “The Merry-Go-Round Broke Down” was written by Friend and Franklin in 1937, spent some time on the charts, and then was picked up by Warner Brothers for their Looney Tune shorts. The first verse to the song goes:
“The merry-go-round broke down,
As we went 'round and 'round.
Each time 'twould miss,
We’d steal a kiss,
And the merry-go-round went…”