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.
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.
I think its full name is “Pizzicato Polka”, by Johann and Josef Strauss.
As Cecil observed here, “American movie makers have always held a deep reverence for composers whose works lie in the public domain.”
Come to think of it, the stereotypical “Fifties housewife music” going through my head is from George Gershwin’s “An American in Paris”.
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.
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.
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.
A googling of “Plink! Plank! Plunk!” returned this list of familiar yet nameless music.For instance,
Thanks very much to Bruce_Daddy for perfect delivery of the zinger this thread itle begged for. 
Yes, but the piece is played on a steam instrument, not a wind instrument — the calliope.
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.
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.)
[two wee hijacks]
-
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’…
-
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]
Finding out the title of the clown music is about as jarring as finding out the title of the “MAS*H” theme is “Suicide Is Painless.”
The original lyrics to “The Merry-Go Round Broke Down”:
The whole thing can be found here.
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.
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. 
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.
Seems more like an IMHO to me.