Turning
Leitmotifese
A few friends and I are desperate to discover
where the brief three-tone theme-music snippet that precedes anything "Chinese"
in bad Hollywood products comes from. Since this is a letter, I can't sing it
to you, but I'm sure you know it. The most accessible reference I can think of
at the moment happens at the very beginning of The Vapors' "Turning
Japanese." This musical theme is absolutely everywhere, and it must
have an origin, either in some traditional Chinese opera, or some Charlie Chan
film, or some crap "exotic" turn of the century orchestral piece, or somewhere.
Help.
Peter
Donna Bowman is on the case:
It is at times like these that we lament
Google's failure, as of yet, to create musical searches. Surely the technology
exists for a user to hum a few bars into a microphone and get a bunch of
99-cent downloads from iTunes offered in return.
Nevertheless, I wore my
fingers to the bone trying to find the right combination of search terms
(pentatonic asian stereotype leitmotif "charlie chan") before getting lucky.
Typing "G-G-G-G-F-F-D-D-F" (the notes played in the key of C) leads to the
fifth page of a ridiculously in-depth research project
on what the author, Martin Nilsson, calls "the musical cliché figure
representing the Far East." If you still don't know what Peter and Martin and I
are talking about, you can hear a tinny computer-generated version here.
This exact variant,
Nilsson demonstrates, appears for the first time as a riff in the chorus of
Carl Douglas' 1974 hit "Kung Fu Fighting." Five years later, the Vapors started
their new wave hit "Turning Japanese" with the identical riff. Although it
occurs incidentally in a Betty Boop cartoon from 1935, no other instances of
this exact musical phrase in popular culture have been found in the intervening
39 years.
The likely origin of the
memorable phrase lies not in the sequence of notes, but in the rhythm:
Nilsson calls this "the
Far East Proto-Cliché," and documents its use in popular and light classical
music back to the 1880s. Although it was used to signify generalized Asian
exoticism (associated with places as far-flung as Persia and Egypt), by the early
20th century, it's nearly omnipresent in music associated with "chinoiserie,"
the fad for Oriental décor and dress.
Every two-bit jazz combo
in the country seems to have recorded a novelty song with some version of the
Proto-Cliché, from "Chinatown My Chinatown" to "Chong, He Come From Hong Kong"
to "My Yokohama Girl." The Walt Disney music department was especially fond of
the trope. Versions occur in "The China Plate" (a Disney Silly Symphony in
which painted figures on a piece of porcelain come to life), a few propaganda
cartoons from the World War II period, and most beloved by The A.V. Club, the classic music-ed
cartoon "Toot, Whistle, Plunk, and Boom."
But blame Carl Douglas for the exact motif
you can't get out of your head. His version has become the classic expression
of the cliché, appearing everywhere from quickie exploitation movies to
videogame soundtracks.
Happy
Birthday To Crew
What's
the origin of the phrase "Go (person's name), it's your birthday!" —usually
accompanied by some sort of foolish dance?
Doing a Google search on words like "go" and "it's
your birthday" is nigh-impossible, given the commonality of the terms. As well,
since it's not associated with any particular name, you can't really put it in
quotes. The best I could find was a forum thread with other people like me
speculating, but no real answers. Don't try telling me 50 Cent, either. Cheers,
Corey
Nathan Rabin says:
Hey Corey,
He certainly didn't invent
birthdays, or the concept of celebrating or commemorating birthdays, but First
Amendment martyr, godfather of Miami bass, spiritual father of crunk, rapper,
entrepreneur, 2 Live Crew founder, ho enthusiast, scourge of George Lucas'
existence, and all-around bon vivant Luke (a.k.a. Luther Campbell, a.k.a. Luke
Skyywalker) helped popularize the phrase you mention in his 1994 hit "It's Your
Birthday."
The copyright holder of
Luke's song (attorney Joseph Weinberger, who purchased the rights to many Luke
and 2 Live Crew songs when the rapper declared bankruptcy) later sued 50 Cent,
claiming copyright infringement.
Junk
Science
There
was a show in the late '70s or early '80s (more likely the '80s) about a man
who builds a rocket ship in his backyard (I think he owns a junkyard) so he can
go to the moon and salvage all the spacejunk left behind. Any ideas?
Todd
Noel again:
The show you're
remembering was called Salvage 1. It began life as an incredibly cool two-hour TV
movie, starring Andy Griffith as a junkman who helps an ex-astronaut build a
homemade rocket in order to bring back some valuables and pay off some debts.
When it went to series, Salvage 1 sent Griffith and company on another crazy
mission every week, though not in outer space. In episode six, for example,
they braved a haunted mansion and discovered–no joke–that its sole inhabitant
was a homesick alien.
Twenty episodes were made,
but near as I can tell, only 16 ever aired–14 as a mid-season replacement in
early 1979, and two more to fill in for another quickly cancelled show in the
fall of that year. Man, would I ever like to see a DVD set.
People who remember the Salvage
1 pilot
fondly should know that Mark and Michael Polish–the filmmaking brothers behind Twin
Falls Idaho, Jackpot,
and Northfork–have
recently completed a film called The Astronaut Farmer with a similar plot,
starring Griffith crony Billy Bob Thornton as the man who builds the rocket.
It's due out in early 2007.
Next week: more answers, more questions, and some responses to our
latest batch of Stumped! queries. Send your questions to [email protected].
