# What's that clown music? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [May 4, 2004, 10:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-that-clown-music/243542 "2004-05-04T22:43:05Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![Pride\_of\_the\_Peaches](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/3e96dc/32.png) [@Pride\_of\_the\_Peaches](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pride_of_the_Peaches)\ **Post date:** [May 8, 2004, 12:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-that-clown-music/243542/61 "2004-05-08T00:29:13Z")
Sort of back to the OP, does anyone remember the music from that Simpsons episode where Homer decides to become a clown? It plays when he’s at the dinner table and everyone in the family starts looking like clowns. That’s what I thought of when I read the OP, actually. ---
**Author:** ![Slithy\_Tove](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slithy_tove/32/18248_2.png) [@Slithy\_Tove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slithy_Tove)\ **Post date:** [May 8, 2004, 1:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-that-clown-music/243542/62 "2004-05-08T01:08:18Z")
> [@Eve](#): > > Alright, what’s the “1950s Going Shopping” music? Very plinkity-plunkity “Holiday for Strings”-y, but it’s _not_ “Holiday for Strings.” They use it a lot in cartoons (_Ren & Stimpy, SpongeBob_) to indicate “glamorous 1950s housewife” or “happy suburban home.” I once heard that it’s simply called “Pizzicato,” which, since that’s also a playing technique, makes verification via google a long prospect. Probably less than four days go by that I don’t hear that piece up here in the Pacific Northwest: it seems the high point for this area was the 1962 World’s Fair with the Seattle Space Needle. Shortly after, Boeing dropped it’s plans to build supersonic airliners and laid off so many people that the PNW missed out on the the 1960’s & 70’s. So nostalgia for that era runs strong up here. ---
**Author:** ![ElvisL1ves](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)\ **Post date:** [May 8, 2004, 1:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-that-clown-music/243542/63 "2004-05-08T01:36:14Z")
I think its full name is “Pizzicato Polka”, by Johann and Josef Strauss. As Cecil observed [here](http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a1_324a.html), “American movie makers have always held a deep reverence for composers whose works lie in the public domain.” ---
**Author:** ![ElvisL1ves](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)\ **Post date:** [May 8, 2004, 1:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-that-clown-music/243542/64 "2004-05-08T01:40:52Z")
Come to think of it, the stereotypical “Fifties housewife music” going through my head is from George Gershwin’s “An American in Paris”. ---
**Author:** ![Pashnish\_Ewing](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/8797f3/32.png) [@Pashnish\_Ewing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pashnish_Ewing)\ **Post date:** [May 8, 2004, 5:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-that-clown-music/243542/65 "2004-05-08T05:21:23Z")
> [@ElvisL1ves](#): > > I think its full name is “Pizzicato Polka”, by Johann and Josef Strauss. > > As Cecil observed [here](http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a1_324a.html), “American movie makers have always held a deep reverence for composers whose works lie in the public domain.” I thought **Eve** was talking about the music they played on the Simpsons while Homer was in “The Land of Chocolate”. That’s the plink-plink music I associate with 50’s modern housewares, but it differs from the Pizzicato Polka sample. ---
**Author:** ![tracer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tracer/32/20578_2.png) [@tracer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tracer)\ **Post date:** [May 8, 2004, 6:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-that-clown-music/243542/66 "2004-05-08T06:17:07Z")
> [@Slithy Tove](#): > > Shortly after, Boeing dropped it’s plans to build supersonic airliners And now, Being has even dropped its plans to build the Sonic Cruiser. _sigh_ Commercial aviation will have to limp along at mach 0.8. ---
**Author:** ![ElvisL1ves](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)\ **Post date:** [May 8, 2004, 9:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-that-clown-music/243542/67 "2004-05-08T21:14:13Z")
> [@Pashnish Ewing](#): > > I thought **Eve** was talking about the music they played on the Simpsons while Homer was in “The Land of Chocolate”. I’m having trouble pulling that scene out of my subconscious, but “plink plink” makes me think it’s “Plink! Plank! Plunk!”, a pizzicato piece by Leroy Anderson for the Boston Pops. ---
**Author:** ![ElvisL1ves](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)\ **Post date:** [May 8, 2004, 9:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-that-clown-music/243542/68 "2004-05-08T21:22:57Z")
A googling of “Plink! Plank! Plunk!” returned [this list of familiar yet nameless music](http://www.curiousnotions.com/home/music_1.html).For instance, > [@](#): > > David Letterman often uses \*\*Plink, Plank, Plunk \*\* over pre-recorded video segments on his show. It’s a flowing, syncopated melody played by a string orchestra entirely in pizzicato and dates from 1951. When the TV quiz show “I’ve Got a Secret” premiered in 1952, Plink, Plank, Plunk was chosen for its theme music. ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [May 8, 2004, 9:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-that-clown-music/243542/69 "2004-05-08T21:23:20Z")
Thanks very much to **Bruce\_Daddy** for perfect delivery of the zinger this thread itle begged for. 🆒 ---
**Author:** ![Liberal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/848f3c/32.png) [@Liberal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Liberal)\ **Post date:** [May 10, 2004, 6:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-that-clown-music/243542/70 "2004-05-10T18:24:45Z")
> [@Zebra](#): > > You never played a wind instrament did you? > The hard T at the end of Dunt Dunt is much more like the tounging that you would have to do while playing. Yes, but the piece is played on a steam instrument, not a wind instrument — the calliope. ---
**Author:** ![Zebra](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/c0e974/32.png) [@Zebra](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zebra)\ **Post date:** [May 10, 2004, 9:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-that-clown-music/243542/71 "2004-05-10T21:19:09Z")
Well sometimes it’s played by a full concert band. Just try to sing doobie doobie at full circus speed. It can’t be done by most people. The dunt dunt digga digga dunt dunt duh dunt can be sung at a much faster speed. ---
**Author:** ![jsc1953](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/5daacb/32.png) [@jsc1953](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jsc1953)\ **Post date:** [May 10, 2004, 11:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-that-clown-music/243542/72 "2004-05-10T23:51:05Z")
Why does reading a song transcribed into "doot doot … " notation make me giggle uncontrollably? I swear, there’s a web site out there somewhere (and I’ll find it if I get a chance) that lets you transcribe a melody into a simple start-higher-lower-lower-higher notation, and finds a match. Haven’t tried it myself, but it would be awesome for a thread like this. (Many years ago, a friend and I started riffing on Phantom of the Opera, and Tocatta and Fugue in D minor – and how the Phantom got an organ into the sewers underneath the Paris Opera…and how other instruments would have been more easily transported. It wound visualizing the Tocatta and Fugue being played on the banjo, or the ocarina, or the highland bagpipe. No, we weren’t high.) ---
**Author:** ![Ms\_Boods](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/5e9695/32.png) [@Ms\_Boods](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ms_Boods)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2004, 12:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-that-clown-music/243542/73 "2004-05-11T00:19:39Z")
[two wee hijacks] 1. I once struggled to get an undergraduate discussion session going on a hot, near the end of the term Friday afternoon around 4pm on the topic of 5th century BC Athenian naval policy…after a lengthy, painful silence from my bored students, the University of Virginia orchestra in the courtyard opposite the open windows suddenly cranked up with ‘Liberty Bell’… 2. The collective name for my pair of older dogs is ‘Doots.’ So when I just want those dogs in the house, and not all four of them, I shout, ‘Doots, come in the house!’ And only the Doots come inside… [/two wee hijacks] ---
**Author:** ![Snooooopy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ee7513/32.png) [@Snooooopy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Snooooopy)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2004, 1:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-that-clown-music/243542/74 "2004-05-11T01:52:28Z")
Finding out the title of the clown music is about as jarring as finding out the title of the “M_A_S\*H” theme is “Suicide Is Painless.” ---
**Author:** ![Skywatcher](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/skywatcher/32/254_2.png) [@Skywatcher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skywatcher)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2004, 2:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-that-clown-music/243542/75 "2004-05-11T02:19:12Z")
The original lyrics to “The Merry-Go Round Broke Down”: > [@](#): > > INTRO: > Ask me why I’m happy singing like a lark, > And I’ll tell you of an old amusement park, > A “merry-go-round” was there, > I gladly paid the fare, > My baby rode around with me then suddenly > > REFRAIN: > Oh, the merry-go-round broke down > As we went 'round and 'round > Each time 'twould miss > We’d steal a kiss > While the merry-go-round went > Um-pah-pah, um-pah-pah > Um-pah um-pah um-pah-pah > > The merry-go-round broke down > And made the darndest sound > The lights went low, > We both said “Oh!” > And the merry-go-round went > Um-pah-pah, um-pah-pah > Um-pah um-pah um-pah-pah The whole thing can be found [here](http://members.aol.com/roxln1/midistuf/pop_mus/thirties/merrygo.txt). ---
**Author:** ![HoldOnThere](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e36b37/32.png) [@HoldOnThere](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HoldOnThere)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2004, 2:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-that-clown-music/243542/76 "2004-05-11T02:43:19Z")
Speaking of clowns, does anyone remember the movie ‘Killer Klowns from Outer Space’ (1988)? Very creepy but cool. Postulates that everything about our circus and clown culture is derived from visiting aliens. I was laughing and scared at the same time. ---
**Author:** ![Liberal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/848f3c/32.png) [@Liberal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Liberal)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2004, 10:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-that-clown-music/243542/77 "2004-05-11T10:33:42Z")
> [@Zebra](#): > > Well sometimes it’s played by a full concert band. > > Just try to sing doobie doobie at full circus speed. It can’t be done by most people. The dunt dunt digga digga dunt dunt duh dunt can be sung at a much faster speed. I find that I can sing doobie doobie just as fast as I can sing digga digga. In fact, with a dry mouth, doobie doobie is faster than digga digga. Perhaps we could open a Great Debate. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Zebra](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/c0e974/32.png) [@Zebra](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zebra)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2004, 1:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-that-clown-music/243542/78 "2004-05-11T13:56:17Z")
> [@Snooooopy](#): > > Finding out the title of the clown music is about as jarring as finding out the title of the “M_A_S\*H” theme is “Suicide Is Painless.” Not if you ever seen the film. There is a big part of the film where one of the doctors, the dentist, decides to commit suicide and everyone throws a party and assists. That song is sung to him at the party. ---
**Author:** ![Kamino\_Neko](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kamino_neko/32/34_2.png) [@Kamino\_Neko](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kamino_Neko)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2004, 2:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-that-clown-music/243542/79 "2004-05-11T14:14:26Z")
> [@Zebra](#): > > Not if you ever seen the film. There is a big part of the film where one of the doctors, the dentist, decides to commit suicide and everyone throws a party and assists. That song is sung to him at the party. His nickname is the Painless Pole. I’m not sure if the latter portion of the handle is referring to him being Polish, or to his legendary member (Which the MEN can’t resist sneaking a peek at! You know it’s impressive when 1950s military men can ogle it openly.), or both. (Although I suspect that last, there.) But, yeah, they sing Suicide is Painless at Painless’s ‘suicide’. (The Last Supper.) Uhm…ok, this has been a pointless post of semi-random trivia. Carry on. ---
**Author:** ![kaylasdad99](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kaylasdad99/32/3398_2.png) [@kaylasdad99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kaylasdad99)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2004, 4:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-that-clown-music/243542/80 "2004-05-11T16:15:19Z")
> [@Libertarian](#): > > I find that I can sing doobie doobie just as fast as I can sing digga digga. In fact, with a dry mouth, doobie doobie is faster than digga digga. Perhaps we could open a Great Debate. 🙂 Seems more like an IMHO to me. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-that-clown-music/243542.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-that-clown-music/243542.md?page=5)