Today at lunch a co-worker and I were discussing the merits of beer (we both agreed that, in general, we’re glad that it was invented). That discussion led to a discussion of malt liquor, which in turn led to a discussion of Colt .45 Malt Liquor. I seem to remember that the commercials for it (including the animated horse kicking the horseshoe “CLANG”) used the same song as that played by the Nairobi Trio on Ernie Kovacs. The song’s name, BTW, is “Solfeggio.” Does anyone else out there remember this , or am I dreaming?
I remember the Nairobi Trio and can hear the music in my head. I don’t recall the Colt 45 connection though.
[hijack]
Who remembers the “Kapusta Kid” and how he liked his hotcakes?
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[Ernie Kovacs’ ‘Nairobi Trio’ - three gorillas playing instruments (the one with the drumsticks would hit one of the others on the head)]. I’m pretty darn sure it was also used on the beer commercial. And I remember the horseshoe, too.
Personally, I liked the Schultz & Dooley talking mugs from Utica Club. Can’t remember the names of the other mugs (one was an Irish police officer), and I think one was a baby mug.
Nice n’ brown, of course!
Fix ‘em with your lovin’…(you know the kind I mean!)…and serve ‘em with some huggin’, some coffee, and some cream!
(and don’t forget the side order of sausage)
I’m just old enough to have seen The Ernie Kovacs Show during its first run (my father was a big fan), and the Nairobi Trio scared the HELL out of me. One of the traumas of my early childhood.
To this day, that music gives me the heebie jeebies, and don’t EVER sneak up on me in a trenchcoat and a monkey mask!
:singing to self:
“Piels…Real…Draft…
The kind of beeeer you first luuuuuuuuuv’d.”
I thought I was the only one.
Not only did the Colt .45 malt liquor use that music as their theme–they even did one commercial with their own version of the Nairobi Trio <i>playing</i> the theme. One was at the piano, one was conducting, and I think the other one was delivering the beverages. I remember seeing this commercial in a TV broadcast of “Bridge over the River Kwai” which would have probably between 1972 and 1973 (as I remember that I was in 6th or 7th grade).
Thanks to all for confirming my memory.
I have only a very hazy memory of the Kovacs show (so hazy that for the longest time I couldn’t remember exactly what the Trio looked like. I recalled masks of some sort and trenchcoats but that was about all). A documentary on PBS recently talked about Kovacs as being a surrealist right up there with Dali, and I suppose putting three men in trenchcoats, monkey masks, and having them play a tune originally designed as an excercise for teachiing proper time keeping qualifies.
Dum dum dum dum, dum dum dum dum, dum dum dum dum dum dum dum dum.
I remember seeing a special on Ernie Kovacs and various famous stars appeared under the masks of the Nairobi Trio at times. It was quite an honor, apparently.
Has anyone seen a good video collection of his stuff?
<beer commercial nostalgia>
Anyone remember the great Ranier Beer commercials of the '70s? The motorcycle “Raaaaaaaaniiiiiiiiiiieeeeeeer” shift “Beeeeeeeeeeeeer”. Or the woodlands scene with the frogs, predating the Budwiser frogs by 25 years?
</beer commercial nostalgia>
sol mi la,
fa re sol,
mi do fa re sol sol…
Those were the actual “lyrics” to the song, which should make it obvious why it was called “Solfeggio” . . . each pitch in the scale is sung to the corresponding do-re-mi syllable.
In Indian classical music the singers do that all the time. After singing the text words to the raga, they elaborate the raga by singing the names of the notes:
sa re ga ma pa dha ni
(the second tone of the scale being named “re” in both systems is a coincidence).
Solfège is not used much in Western music anymore. Apart from Kovacs, the main example I can think of is from Rodgers & Hammerstein’s “Do Re Mi” – the part of the song where Julie Andrews has each of the seven kids singing one note of the scale, so she “plays” the melody by pointing at each kid to get the notes in the right order.
Don’t worry plnnr, you’re not nuts. Unless I am. I’m not old enough to have been alive when Ernie Kovacs was on teevee, but I did see a documentary about him on one of the cable stations. I’d also seen The Nairobi Trio once before when I was a lot younger. I remember the song was the same as the malt liquor commercial. I also remember a sharply-dressed man sitting at a white table that’s floating down a river toward a waterfall.