| "The Merry-Go-Round Broke Down" | |
|---|---|
| Song | |
| Published | Harms Inc. (1937) |
| Songwriter(s) | Cliff Friend Dave Franklin |
"The Merry-Go-Round Broke Down" is a song written in 1937 by Cliff Friend and Dave Franklin and published by Harms Inc., New York. 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.
Popular recordings of the song included versions by Shep Fields, Russ Morgan and Eddy Duchin.[1]
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".