# The little tune we all know, but never talk about
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-little-tune-we-all-know-but-never-talk-about/415808
**Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
**Created:** [August 16, 2007, 1:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-little-tune-we-all-know-but-never-talk-about/415808 "2007-08-16T13:18:56Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 2
### Author:  [@Autolycus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Autolycus)
#### Post date: [August 16, 2007, 7:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-little-tune-we-all-know-but-never-talk-about/415808/21 "2007-08-16T19:23:33Z")
Wait, so you do or do not whistle Dragnet? What’s a white grapist? Uuruasdfhgh.
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### Author:  [@rowrrbazzle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rowrrbazzle)
#### Post date: [August 16, 2007, 7:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-little-tune-we-all-know-but-never-talk-about/415808/22 "2007-08-16T19:27:00Z")
I think I know the tune the OP means. The rhythm is as the OP gave, and the notes are C A G F F (descending from the first note). My vague memory brings up a cartoon character running over a bridge that collapses under him or runs off a cliff. He stays in the air until he realizes what’s happened, whereupon the animator redraws him as a jackass and the music plays. Then the character regains his original appearance and falls. But it was some character earlier and other than Wile E. Coyote.
But I have no idea where it originated.
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### Author:  [@Don\_Draper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Don_Draper)
#### Post date: [August 16, 2007, 7:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-little-tune-we-all-know-but-never-talk-about/415808/23 "2007-08-16T19:32:05Z")
[QUOTE=tdn]
…Nuclear war breaks out, and all life on Earth is destroyed.
So what do you do?
[/QUOTE]
I do nothing. I’ve been vaporized. (You wrote ALL life on Earth is destroyed, so I am too.)
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### Author:  [@Liberal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Liberal)
#### Post date: [August 16, 2007, 7:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-little-tune-we-all-know-but-never-talk-about/415808/24 "2007-08-16T19:32:27Z")
I know this is gonna seem ridiculous, but this is very close to it:
[ ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B_oTlWPGU0w)
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### Author:  [@tdn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tdn)
#### Post date: [August 16, 2007, 7:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-little-tune-we-all-know-but-never-talk-about/415808/25 "2007-08-16T19:49:50Z")
[QUOTE=Autolycus]
Wait, so you do or do not whistle Dragnet? What’s a white grapist? Uuruasdfhgh.
[/QUOTE]
Not! Not! A thousand times not!
**The Grapist** was an annoying member from a few years back, who would go into random threads and post You have been graped by the grapist! Did I mention annoying? Because if I haven’t, I would like to say that he was annoying.
Colored text is generally frowned upon here, but I chose to use it in this thread. I used white. Highlight my text in post #4, and you’ll see it.
---
### Author:  [@tdn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tdn)
#### Post date: [August 16, 2007, 7:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-little-tune-we-all-know-but-never-talk-about/415808/26 "2007-08-16T19:52:05Z")
[QUOTE=Hampshire]
Why is the dog in the supermarket?
[/QUOTE]
I presume to buy dog food. They have to eat, you know!
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### Author:  [@Liberal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Liberal)
#### Post date: [August 16, 2007, 7:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-little-tune-we-all-know-but-never-talk-about/415808/27 "2007-08-16T19:53:35Z")
[QUOTE=tdn]
Colored text is generally frowned upon here, but I chose to use it in this thread. I used white. Highlight my text in post #4, and you’ll see it.
[/QUOTE]
I’m glad I made my background grey. 🙂
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### Author:  [@Autolycus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Autolycus)
#### Post date: [August 16, 2007, 7:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-little-tune-we-all-know-but-never-talk-about/415808/28 "2007-08-16T19:54:59Z")
[QUOTE=tdn]
Colored text is generally frowned upon here, but I chose to use it in this thread. I used white. Highlight my text in post #4, and you’ll see it.
[/QUOTE]
I remember The Grapist, but I didn’t catch your little trick there.
Duped again!
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### Author:  [@cowgirl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cowgirl)
#### Post date: [August 16, 2007, 8:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-little-tune-we-all-know-but-never-talk-about/415808/29 "2007-08-16T20:07:44Z")
Was it that animated typewriter guy on Sesame Street?
[Noo ne noo ne noo ne noo ne noo …](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j0tpbDOaZVI)?
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### Author:  [@Freudian\_Slit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Freudian_Slit)
#### Post date: [August 16, 2007, 8:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-little-tune-we-all-know-but-never-talk-about/415808/30 "2007-08-16T20:26:18Z")
Okay, I definitely know what you mean, but not what song it is.
They do use it a lot in the Simpsons. Whenever someone does something wrong, and they walk off, pretending to be all innocent. I’m trying to see if I can pull up a youtube Simpsons scene with someone whistling, but I can’t even think of any right now. Do you remember any specific scenes where someone did that?
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### Author:  [@Liberal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Liberal)
#### Post date: [August 16, 2007, 9:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-little-tune-we-all-know-but-never-talk-about/415808/31 "2007-08-16T21:04:59Z")
I see lots of references to it on Google as “innocent whistle”. But no mention of who wrote it.
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### Author:  [@Liberal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Liberal)
#### Post date: [August 16, 2007, 9:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-little-tune-we-all-know-but-never-talk-about/415808/32 "2007-08-16T21:06:00Z")
[QUOTE=cowgirl]
Was it that animated typewriter guy on Sesame Street?
[Noo ne noo ne noo ne noo ne noo …](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j0tpbDOaZVI)?
[/QUOTE]
Yeah, that’s the same tune I think.
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### Author:  [@Least\_Original\_User\_Name\_Ever](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Least_Original_User_Name_Ever)
#### Post date: [August 16, 2007, 9:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-little-tune-we-all-know-but-never-talk-about/415808/33 "2007-08-16T21:08:25Z")
I didn’t know that “14 k of g in an f p d” had a song…
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### Author:  [@IrreverentTone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/IrreverentTone)
#### Post date: [August 16, 2007, 9:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-little-tune-we-all-know-but-never-talk-about/415808/34 "2007-08-16T21:19:51Z")
The midi on this [page](http://ask.metafilter.com/12067/) is almost but not quite it, I think.
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### Author:  [@Quartz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quartz)
#### Post date: [August 16, 2007, 9:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-little-tune-we-all-know-but-never-talk-about/415808/35 "2007-08-16T21:31:02Z")
‘Happiness is a cigar called Hamlet’
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### Author:  [@Quartz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quartz)
#### Post date: [August 16, 2007, 9:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-little-tune-we-all-know-but-never-talk-about/415808/36 "2007-08-16T21:35:02Z")
[Sample Youtube video](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tiHR11QqIoI).
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### Author:  [@some\_white\_dude](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/some_white_dude)
#### Post date: [August 16, 2007, 9:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-little-tune-we-all-know-but-never-talk-about/415808/37 "2007-08-16T21:38:33Z")
I know [this](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jHjFxJVeCQs) isn’t it, but it’s all I can think of at the moment.
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### Author:  [@scotandrsn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/scotandrsn)
#### Post date: [August 16, 2007, 9:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-little-tune-we-all-know-but-never-talk-about/415808/38 "2007-08-16T21:50:26Z")
I would say the “innocent whistle” is not an exact melody, but simply a descending motif.
I will hazard a WAG and say that it’s one of those cross-cultural things that a lot of people do and recognize, kind of like the “nyah nyah” song, which has a nearly identical melody the world over, even in cultures that were using it before contact with other cultures who use it.
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### Author:  [@tdn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tdn)
#### Post date: [August 17, 2007, 12:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-little-tune-we-all-know-but-never-talk-about/415808/39 "2007-08-17T00:11:56Z")
[QUOTE=Liberal]
I see lots of references to it on Google as “innocent whistle”. But no mention of who wrote it.
[/QUOTE]
I’m not sure anyone wrote it in the traditional sense of sitting down at a piano with manuscript paper. I’m betting that either a) It was first done that way in a movie or something, then just caught on, or b) it’s written into our DNA. I’m betting it’s b, because it does seem to be universal.
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### Author:  [@Chessic\_Sense](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chessic_Sense)
#### Post date: [August 17, 2007, 12:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-little-tune-we-all-know-but-never-talk-about/415808/40 "2007-08-17T00:44:24Z")
[QUOTE=cowgirl]
Was it that animated typewriter guy on Sesame Street?
[Noo ne noo ne noo ne noo ne noo …](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j0tpbDOaZVI)?
[/QUOTE]
I love that the last commment on the Sesame Street ( :eek: ) video was “hot adults on webcam in your AREA! CAMAZONCAMS dot COM”
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