Dude - calm down. It’s not like there’s a “database of every motif you heard in every cartoon and t.v. show when you were growing up”. We remember the riff. If you don’t tough beans. Let me remind you that:
ABSENCE OF EVIDENCE IS NOT EVIDENCE OF ABSENCE.
Look… I’m trying really hard not to get snarky here. This is GQ right? We’re looking for a factual answer to a factual question, right? That’s all I’m driving at. I’m not claiming evidence of absence and I wish you wouldn’t pretend that I did so. However, I feel entirely comfortable invoking absence of evidence at this point. I think if we got a mod involved, they’d back me up in saying that “some dude’s memory” doesn’t count as a cite.
And since misunderstanding continues, I never asked for anyone to come up with a score or recording consisting solely of these few bars of music. All I asked was was for someone to turn up a named musical work (named, and therefore dateable) where this riff could be identified by listening or reading music. I cited the earliest one I know of, it’s freely available on line, it’s undisputably the earliest solid evidence we have. I made a good faith effort to dig up something that would prove me wrong, for heaven’s sake. I think I’ve played a pretty fair game here. I don’t understand why people are so resistant to a request for a cite.
I don’t think you understand what the expression means. Maybe an example will help:
A few years ago, snopes.com ran an article about an alleged incident that happened on the Newlywed Show, where a contestant said the “most unusual place she and her husband ever made love”, was “in the ass”. Snopes claimed that the incident never happened, reasoning that since they couldn’t turn up a tape of it, that it therefore didn’t occur. They used the same “false memory” reasoning that you are using, that people only thought they remembered it.
Guess what happened? A tape DID turn up, and Snopes had to retract what they said. That’s what we mean by “absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.” Just because they couldn’t find the tape didn’t mean it never happened.
I think you’ll find this piece of music has origins in vaudeville and pantomime as a generic tune, alongside hundreds of similar generic tunes, that represent cultures or situations. Meaning it’s existed for at least 100 years and its origins are now lost in the mists of time.
OK, that’s a fantastic example. Pure genius. Let’s run with that. Let’s look at the corrected Snopes article now and gain both enlightenment and perspective:
And the article goes on to say that in addition to misremembering the race of the couple involved, other variations of the story place the occurrence in radio stations in Australia and Chicago as well.
In other words… the tape proved that they misremembered it. Now, are you still 100% sure that you couldn’t possibly have misremembered it? I’m not saying you did, but I’m saying it’s possible and that a cite would clear this up. Just as it did in the example that you fortuitously provided.
I have no idea why we’re still arguing about this. Cites are supposed to be the community gold standard around here.
re: the Natto debate: I was born in 1955, and I well remember that tune in all kinds of contexts, mostly cartoons, when I was young. So it certainly predated 1974!!!
p.s. – the opening bars of the song identified by zut do sound very much like the tune we’re all talking about. Good find, zut!!!
p.p.s. – When I was learning to play piano, I’m pretty sure one of the songs was that Chinese song, and that it was from a collection of easy pieces by Peter Foy. Here are some of his music collections . When I get home I’ll look and see if I still have the book (but I probably don’t).
All right, I sent out an email to Charles Garrett about this thread. (Imagine my surprise to find that his office is located about a mile from mine. Small world!) Hopefully, this might pique his interest enough to shed some light on the subject.
p.p.p.s. – Foy’s Foibles has a song Serenade to a Japanese Teabag. That must be the song I’m thinking of. I’ll try to find the music for it so I can determine whether it’s the song we’re all talking about.
Am I crazy, or isn’t “Chinatown, My Chinatown” (1920) almost certainly the answer to the OP. The riff is in that tune – it’s on a piano, so it sounds different, but it’s in there.
Well, it could be the answer. I think it’s clearly related, and related very closely. But is “Chinatown, My Chinatown” the direct ancestor of the “Kung Fu Fighting” riff, or are they both borrowing from something else entirely? And even if it is the direct ancestor, is “Chinatown, My Chinatown” the original place where the riff is used, or is the origin further back yet? And, in the other direction: exactly when and where did the “Chinatown, My Chinatown” riff morph into the “Kung Fu Fighting” riff?
Unfortunately, I suspect that this might be someone’s as-yet-unwritten doctoral dissertation.
Carl Stalling, who wrote much of the music for the Warner Bros. cartoons starting in the 40’s, actually wrote a short piece called ‘Variation on Chinatown My Chinatown’. The whole piece is only 9 seconds long, just long enough to serve as incidental music for ‘getting hit on the head’ or 'being knocked all the way to China". Unfortunately, it does not contain the KFF/TJ riff; indeed, it sounds less like this riff than the original Chinatown My Chinatown. You can listen to the entire piece at Amazon.com under The Carl Stalling Project Vol 2:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/B000002MN3/104-3654936-6639960?v=glance
I have to side with NattoGuy on this. While this piece does not prove that Looney Tunes cartoons did NOT use the KFF/TJ riff, it is suggestive that a childhood memory of an ‘oriental’ riff in a cartoon is not enough to demonstrate the use of the specific KFF/TJ riff before 1974.
You missed the point. Had you read the original Snopes article, before the tape turned up, there would have been a strong implication that the event never happened. Not just that the details were changed, but that it NEVER HAPPENED. I only used that to demonstrate the GENERAL PRINCIPLE that, “Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.” Way to take it out of context, though. :rolleyes:
Really? I don’t hear it. It starts with what is close to an inversion of the tune, but it’s definitely not the tune. Are you saying it’s somewhere in the middle of the song?
The riff that many of us remember is NOT the one at the beginning of Chinatown, My Chinatown, nor is it the one in Kung Fu Fighting. The one we’re talking about is at a slower tempo than Kung Fu Fighting, and it generally ends with a gong sound. Kung Fu Fighting is quoting that riff, in the same way that The Jetsons theme song quotes “Chopsticks”. With all due respect to those advancing the theory, I really don’t think this is a collective manufactured memory.
Let me ask you this: Did the tune “Chopsticks” originate in The Jetsons theme song? I think most of us would say no, and it wouldn’t be necessary to prove it, because people who were alive before The Jetsons premiered remember playing Chopsticks on the piano.
And NattoGuy, you’re confusing this with Great Debates. That’s where you do the whole demand for cites and all that garbage. We’re not having a formal debate here - we’re just trying to answer a question.
Good find, but no cigar. It’s not that close: The “Chinatown” song has a riff identical to my written music fragment in rhythm, harmony (pentatonic scale, using 4ths) but not melody. The Parlor Songs tune goes UP after the first 4 repeated notes, my sample goes DOWN.
And to nitpick, the harmony on the “Chinatown” midi file uses 3 tones in parallel motion; each represents a complete triad chord. This is a little different from how I usually hear it, as two tones parallel fourths apart, which is an interval, not a chord.
I emailed both proprietors of the Parlor Songs site asking the OP. I’ll let you know if they reply.
The tune I recall started with the KFF riff, then continued for a few more notes. The KFF riff quotes first half of the melody.
G G G G F F D D F <— kff
G G G F F G F D D
I actually found a Scooby Doo episode (my son loved Scooby Doo last year, we have stacks of tapes) that references the second half of that melody. The episode is “Mystery Mask Mixup”. The melody is quoted about 1/3 of the way through the episode: Fred tells the Gang that they have to check out some scary Chinese-looking castle, Scooby and Shaggy go “gulp!”, and we fade to black with the second-half of the “chinese theme” playing. The episode was from 1970.
If I had infinite time, I bet I could find an instance in a Warner Brothers or, more likely, Tex Avery short from the 50’s.
Guess I wasn’t clear. KFF is the same melody, I just don’t think it originated there. The “real” one ends with a gong sound.
I’m also thinking cheesy war movies from the 50s. I recall that tune being pretty ubiquitous whenever an Asian person showed up in a movie. Problem is, it’s going to be exceedingly difficult to find an example on the web. It’s not like there’s a plethora of web sites sporting sound-file downloads of the audio to an entire feature-length film. Even assuming any of us has the infinite patience to download something like that and wade through the entire thing. Incidental music for movies and t.v. shows doesn’t generally get published. It’s not like you can go to the music store and buy, “That music they play when Bugs Bunny kisses Elmer Fudd on the lips”, or whatever.
I knew what you meant. I was just trying to clarify “the riff that many of us remember”.
Yep. We need Google for music. Moogle! 
Well, disagree a bit. Granted, it’s certainly not identical, but in the grand scheme of musical things, it seems very close, to me. I guess it depends on how you interpret the OP’s question. He asked where that riff “comes from.” Does that mean a) where was that exact riff first used, or b) how was that riff developed over time? Clearly, if you’re answering (a), then “Chinatown” isn’t very useful; but, if you’re answering (b), then I’d think that it’s very relevant. (Of course, the two questions might have the same answer, although I’d guess that they don’t.)
