[hijack]
Whenever someone try’s to ‘guilt’ me for (occasionally) watching those various, over the top, exploitive World’s Wildest Police whatevers I always answer with Homer’s great line:
"He he, its funny cause I don’t know 'em!"
I wonder if the regulars of the alt.tv.simpsons (or whatever it’s called) would know.
I’ll tell you who knows: Alf Clausen.
So I e-mailed him. And he answered. [Homer] WOO HOO![/Homer]
So there you go.
I was thinking of e-mailing Clausen myself.
I figured it might be production music, since it sort of has that “tinge” to it that old-fashioned production music usually has. (KPM is a big British stockhouse for production music. Their U.S. representative is Associated Production Music.) Clausen has written pieces in that jolly production-music style before, the most memorable being Homer’s “Land of Chocolate” dream sequence.
This isn’t the only time library music has been used on The Simpsons. Some other KPM cues were used in the '50s filmreel “City on the Grow” that opens $pringfield, and an NFL Films Music cue (also administered in the U.S. by APM) appears in a mafia-food-takedown sequence in The Twisted World of Marge Simpson.
(I’m not in the film business, and APM does not sell music to the public. I’ve just collected facts over the years based on readings and stuff, and the clever album Music for TV Dinners, the only official authorized commercial release of Associated music.)
wow! that’s awesome that Mr. Clausen answered. Thanks a lot to both of you! Straight Dope is so cool.
There it is, no 14. Looks like the era of Keystone Kops was correct.
From what I can tell, Ronnie Aspery was mostly active in the 60s-70s, and according to allmusic.com (if it’s the same guy–sounds like it is), he died in December of 2003. Keystone Kops would have been the the 1910s-20s.
Actually, he was 57 when he died in 2003, giving him a birthyear of 1946. This site confirms. It also mentions his work on the Simpsons. At the earliest, this song is from the late 60s, but given the publishing date and the track of his career, it seems more likely that it was recorded in the early 90s.
Actually, I meant to say recorded in the late 80s.
The disc in question is part of the KPM production music library, and it appears that the music would orchestrate wacky, Keystone Kops-style antics. Using it to orchestrate grisly footage of automobile accidents is wholly inappropriate- and from that, we get our joke.
Oh. Then I misunderstood GuanoLad’s post. I thought he was saying that it was recorded or composed in the Keystone Kops era. I understood the allusion to the wacky music of the silent film era, my contention was simply that such a sound could be relatively easily produced today.
(Now that I read Guano’s previous post, I understand his point. My bad.)
all these links are dead. i cannot find it iether. please someone tell me the name of the episode as i cannot even find that.
The song is “Round the Bend” by Ron Aspery.
Youtube’s progress hasn’t always been positive in the last 17 years, but people were actually helpful in the comments for the clip!