Just as a post-script, as a courtesy I sent a link to this thread to the administrator of the Parlor Songs site, and recieved the following rather nice reply:
Dear Robert,
Thanks for sharing that discussion link with us. Sometimes we never realise how far-reaching some of our material can be.
I hope you’ll be able to use us again to “fight ignorance”. It’s a big job though, there is more than enough ignorance to go around these days!
Regards,
etc.
So there you go.
I hope you got that copyrighted, cuz they’re filming “Dude, where’s my violin?” as we speak.
Since we’re talking about tunes used in catroons, I’ve got one:
What’s the name of that music that Terrytoons used frequently when something (usually sad) was happening with a dog? You know; dog shivering in the rain or cold, dog separated from his master, that sort of thing?
I think that originally people would mimic playing a life sized violin when someone would complain. That led to many variations including the smallest violin.
Yes, or “Cue the violins!”
Just bumping this one with a recently encountered quote from Kinky Friedman’s 1986 novel Greenwich Killing Time:
“You know what this is?” I asked. I was moving the index finger of my left hand back and forth across the thumbnail of the same hand…
…“Well, let me tell you, honey. It’s the smallest violin in the world, and it’s playing ‘Hearts and Flowers’”.
So there, as they say, you go.
I heard Clarence Clemons is doing the score; it’s full of sax and violins!
Do you mean the one that goes: #dee-da-da-dee-dee, da-dee-da-dee-da-do-da-dum-di-di-di-di-diii.# That’s what I first thought of at the beginning of the thread, but it’s completely different from the posted link.
I don’t know, but my grandfather HAS a tiny violin that actually plays. It’s something like an inch or two long. So cute!
~Tasha
Skib-bip-do-pip-pap, dibba-dat-totat-bappa-rebap, man that is some really cool jazz!
You have to listen to the notes he’s not playing…
I vauguely recall seeing a crack about the worlds smallest violin in an episode of the honeymooners. That would predate all the other examples.
When I was a kid we would rub a thumb in a tiny circle on the index finger and say it’s the world’s smallest record player playing “My Heart Bleeds for You.”
Just popping in to mention that, while watching an episode of Spongebob Squarepants, there was an episode where Spongebob was crying hysterically about something, and the violin music was playing. The scene cut to a sad looking Mr. Krabs rubbing the tips of one of his pinchers together in the “tiniest violin” pose, and then a close-up of his pincher revealed that he WAS playing a tiny violin. I LOL’d, my little brother needed the joke explained.