The Merry-Go-Round Broke Down

"The Merry-Go-Round Broke Down"
Song
Published	1937
Writer(s)	Cliff Friend Dave Franklin

"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 and Merrie Melodies reissued cartoon series produced by Warner Bros. Cartoons, used from 1937 to 1969.

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 name was a play on "breakdown" and the tune is similar to the traditional "Chinese Breakdown" as well as the children's rhyme "Miss Susie had a steamboat".

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-th-that's all, folks!" over the tune at each cartoon's end. A different vocal version, sung by Daffy Duck (voice of Mel Blanc), was heard in Daffy Duck and Egghead, a 1938 entry in the Merrie Melodies series, a sister series to the Looney Tunes, at about five minutes into the cartoon. Daffy also sang a specially-modified version of the song in the 1950 Looney Tunes short Boobs in the Woods. The tune made a "cameo" appearance in the 1941 Merrie Melodies cartoon Aviation Vacation. The Three Stooges recorded a version in 1959 for their musical album The Nonsense Songbook.

In 1962, a more modern, atonal variation of the theme was arranged by William Lava for use with the updated opening sequences of new Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies shorts. In 1967, a remix of the Lava's version was used in the opening sequences of new Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies shorts.

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