You know, that cliché piece of fast-paced, staccato music that gets played whenever someone is running around like a madman? What is the title of it? Is it public domain?
If you’re talking about the same piece I’m thinking of, it’s Aram Khachaturian’s “Sabre Dance.”
I know because there’s a keyboard video game (hit the keys at the right time to music - a Bamani game, for those of you who know it, in the same brand as Dance Dance Revolution) that has this song on it, and the arrangement is cool. 
Isn’t that the same song that the masturbating bear on Conan, er, ‘performs’ with?
Yes, that’s definitely it. Thanks.
Oh, you mean the Dave Letterman “Is It Anything?” theme? Khatchaturian.
But if it’s Benny Hill doing the frantic running around… that’s “Yakety Sax”. 
Really? That has a name? Well of course it does. How about the cartoon song. I think it was named in Who Framed Roger Rabbit. And the one they always play when somebody’s doing hard labor in a Gulag?
If I recall correctly the “Roger Rabbit” theme, that sounded like a variation of the classic can-can/follies-type music. Dunno the name of either, though.
As for the Gulag theme – well, there just aren’t enough movies made about the Gulag, if you ask me. There is a piece (by Brahms, I think, although they might have also used Samuel Barber’s Adagio) that the world associates with Soviet-era state funerals. Is that what you had in mind?
Roger Rabbit= “The Merry-Go-Round Broke Down”
Gulag music-maybe Prokofiev’s Montagues and Capulets?
Roger Rabbit used Liszt’s “Hungarian Rhapsody #2” in C# minor.
You have all heard it, I’m sure. (advance about two-thirds into the piece to hear the “chase” music)
The “Gulag music” sounds like “The Song of the Volga Boatman”.
Thi’s not the one I’m thinking of, but Mont and Caps is used in similar movie and T.V. situations.
Merry-Go-Round Broke Down is the one I’m thinking of from Roger Rabbit.
I think the music you’re thinking of is indeed the Sabre Dance - listen for it in a hilarious older movie called “One Two Three” with Jimmy Cagney - wonderful use of the music.
the volga boatmen
is this the mystery theme elgar based the variations on???
Oh, for God’s sake, check out Dooku’s link – it’s hilarious and wonderful! I loved the little kid with the cymbals. 
I like the way they all hop up and down in unison.
I saw the OP and thought Flight Of The Bumblebee. Oh well, another fast classical piece!
It’s similar, but not identical. IIRC in VBS, the first interval is a minor 3rd, but in Elgar’s theme, it’s a Major 3rd. Also, in VBS, the 4th note is the same as the 2nd note, but in the Elgar, it’s a step higher.
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Well, sure, if you go the short way . . . 
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