The Merry-Go-Round Broke Down

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The Merry-Go-Round Broke Down is a song written in 1937 by Cliff Friend and Dave Franklin. It is best known as the theme tune for the Looney Tunes cartoon series produced by Warner Bros.

The original version contains an introductory verse that leads up to the main part of the song, as a young man tells of his date with a young woman, in which they go to an amusement park and find time to "spark" while riding the malfunctioning carousel:

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 oom-pah-pah, oom-pah-pah...

An adapted instrumental version of the song's main tune became the staple opening and closing credits theme for the Looney Tunes series, most memorably featuring Porky Pig stuttering "Th-th-that's all, folks!" over the tune at each cartoon's end.

A different vocal version was heard in an early cartoon called Daffy Duck and Egghead, drawn in 1937 and making its debut on January 1, 1938. In a show-stopping piece not really connected to the rest of the cartoon's plotline, and with Daffy drawn in a slightly different way than in the rest of the cartoon, Daffy Duck (voice of Mel Blanc) sings this song to the audience while jumping around in his usual comical way:

My name is Daffy Duck

I worked on a merry-go-round

The job was swell

I did quite well

Till the merry-go-round broke down (Woo-hoo! Woo-hoo! ...)

The guy that worked with me

Was a horse with a lavender eye

Around in whirls we'd wink at girls

Till the merry go round broke down

Up and down

And round it we sped

That dizzy pace

Soon went to my head

Now you know why I'm dizzy

And do the things I do

I am askew and you'd be too

If the merry go round broke down

If the merry go round broo-o-o-oke down

Daffy also sung a different set of lyrics to the same tune in the animated short Porky's Duck Hunt.

Oh people call me Daffy

They think that I am goony

Just because I’m happy is no sign I’m looney tooney

Oh when they say I’m nutsy

It sure gives me a pain

Please pass the ketchup I think its going to rain

Oh you can’t bounce a meatball

Though try with all your might

Turn on the radio I want to fly a kite

Good evening friends

Although used primarily for the Looney Tunes series, the tune made a cameo appearance in a 1941 Merrie Melodies cartoon called Aviation Vacation. The cartoon centers on a small airplane making a world tour, with gags and puns at every turn. Near the end of the film, the plane becomes lost in a cloud of mist, with the control tower (same voice as the narrator, Robert C. Bruce) requesting their location. When the fog finally clears, the plane is seen to be attached to a carousel, spinning around to the tune of The Merry-Go-Round Broke Down. That is the final gag in the picture, which then irises out while the tune segues to the normal Merrie Melodies theme, Merrily We Roll Along.

The song was revived for the film Who Framed Roger Rabbit. It made several appearances...

• First with the title character (voice of Charles Fleischer) singing it while dancing in slapstick fashion atop a bar, scattering shot-glasses and utensils everywhere, accompanyied by an old 78-rpm record soon discovered by the villain of the piece, Judge Doom (Christopher Lloyd) (who remarks "Quite a loony selection for a bunch of drunken reprobates"):

My buddy's Eddie V.

A sourpuss you'll see

But when I'm done

He'll need no gun

'Cause a joker he will be

C, D, F, G, H, I...

love to raise some Cain

Believe me it's no strain

It feels so great

To smash a plate

And look, there is no pain... no pain... no pain... [record needle is stuck]

• Recited (not sung), in the appropriate rhythm and in his character's gruff voice, by the film's other main protagonist, detective Eddie Valiant (Bob Hoskins), accompanied by a carousel that is playing the song, in the climactic sequence of the film. Valiant is trying to distract the villains from harming Roger Rabbit and Jessica Rabbit (Kathleen Turner):

Now Roger is his name

Laughter is his game

C'mon you dope, untie his rope

And watch him go insane

This singin' ain't my line

It's tough to make a rhyme

If I get stuck...

I'm out of luck...

(Jessica) "I'm running out of time!"

I'm sick of taking falls

I'm bouncing off the walls

Without that gun

I'd have some fun

I'd kick you in the... (stopped by a punch)

• Finally, in an instrumental over the film's iris-out, as Porky (voice of Mel Blanc) repeats his classic closing, "That's All, Folks!" and then vanishes, splashed with pixie dust by Tinkerbell's magic wand.

[edit] References

The TV Theme Song Sing-Along Book, Volume 2, by John Lavna, St. Martin's, 1985, ISBN 0-312-78218-7