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The overture to the opera William Tell, especially its high-energy finale, is a very familiar work composed by Gioacchino Rossini. There has been repeated use (and sometimes parody) of this overture in the popular media, most famously for being the theme music for the Lone Ranger media property, and it is quoted by Dmitri Shostakovich in his Symphony No. 15.

The original music

The overture is written in four parts, each segueing into the next:

• Prelude - a slow passage with low-pitch instruments such as cello and bass
• Storm - dynamic section played by full orchestra
• Ranz des vaches (call to the dairy cows) - featuring the English horn
• Finale - ultra-dynamic "cavalry charge" galop heralded by trumpets and played by full orchestra. This is the tune used in the Lone Ranger series.

The Spike Jones version

Spike Jones's version reproduces the original with significant modification of style and replaces the conclusion with the imitated horse race calls of the famous announcer Clem McCarthy.

The song was on the album Spike Jones is Murdering The Classics in 1971, and was later included in the compilation Greatest Hits released in 1999 by RCA Records.

The recording begins with the "Storm" portion of the overture, played frenetically, with the band accompanied by barking dogs and clanging objects of various kinds. The progression was brought to a sudden end with the "Bang!" of one of the famous guns in Jones's unique percussion section.

The "Call to the Cows" begins with normal instruments and artificial bird chirps. The next part is played on pots and pans and bicycle horns, each one in perfect tune, followed by a crash. Finally, the melody is rendered by gargling.

The "Finale" is played on the normal instruments of a big band, mostly as an underscore to the commentary of Doodles Weaver. Weaver introduces the race horses, each bearing a similar name to a real horse (Stoogehand for Stagehand, Dogbiscuit for Seabiscuit, and Assault for Assault). He introduces Feitlebaum last with a distant 20 to 1 odds.

The official name of the horse is "Feitlebaum", after Weaver's character "Professor Feitlebaum", but many have heard it as "Beetlebaum" or "Feeblebaum". The horse's name is always said with a deep monotone.

The announcer goes on a tangent as the race nears its finish, impersonating broadcaster Clem McCarthy, who called the famous Seabiscuit-War Admiral match race in 1938 and also the famous Louis-Schmeling boxing rematch of that same year.

The song concludes with Weaver pronouncing Feitlebaum as the winner.

Other uses in popular culture

• Ranz des vaches often rivals Grieg's Morning Mood in usage for wake-up or morning scenes in films and other media.
• One of the greatest interpretations of this overture can be admired in the first complete Mickey Mouse cartoon made in colour, The Band Concert from 1935.
• All but the prelude has often been used in commercials and animated cartoons: Storm for ships at sea and other tumultuous scenes; Ranz des vaches for any sunrise or waking-up scene, especially on a farm; and the finale for any scene involving galloping, examples being the Warner Brothers cartoons Wabbit Twouble and Yankee Doodle Daffy.
• A small repetitive portion of the Ranz des vaches was once used in Ivory soap ads.
• The Ranz des vaches is the theme for the short cartoon Bambi Meets Godzilla.
• The TV cartoon series The Flintstones put words to the finale, resulting in the song Happy Anniversary.
• Portions of the prelude and the finale were used in the Stanley Kubrick film A Clockwork Orange, the former in a straight and sombre scene, the latter in a humorous context.
• Portions of the finale were used for many years as a TV and radio jingle by Pizza Hut in Sydney and Brisbane, Australia.
• Knowing at least the rhythm of the first line of the finale is essential to understanding this joke:

Q: Where does the Lone Ranger take his garbage?

A: To the dump, to the dump, to the dump-dump-dump!

• An apocryphal story has conductor Leopold Stokowski leading the Philadelphia Orchestra in a number of popular classics including the Overture. Upon the first notes of the finale, a number of school children in the gallery supposedly jumped up and cheered "Hi-yo, Silver!" Stokowski, completely baffled, stopped the orchestra for a few moments; unfamiliar with American popular culture, he had no idea about The Lone Ranger.
• A portion of the prelude was used as a sample in rapper Mike Jones' hit single "Still Tippin'".
• Was the soundtrack for the 1980s video game Digger.
• Was used in the 1995 game Return Fire as the theme music for driving with the flag in your possession.
• Is one of the tracks in the European release of Donkey Konga 2.
• Was used in the retired pricing game Hurdles from The Price Is Right in 1976-1983.
• The Ranz des vaches is heard in the beginning of the video game Day of the Tentacle.
• The post-hardcore band Senses Fail mentions William Tell in their song "The Priest and the Matador".
• The finale is featured as a song in the dance pad game In The Groove, under the name "Tell." The song was remixed specially for the game by staff composer Kyle Ward, under the alias Symphonius.
• The character D-Day, played by Bruce McGill, plays the William Tell Overture on his windpipes in the movie, "Animal House."

External links

• IMDB soundtrack results for William Tell

Media

• Overtures
• In popular culture