The music on it was so familiar and I couldn't figure out why... I figured it was probably from an old movie I had watched in film school, since the Criterion Collection is filled with classic movies, but I couldn't put my finger on what movie had that iconic theme...
So I ask my muscle man, who was absolutely no help and said he'd never heard it before and rolled over and went to bed. This just made me mad because it's iconic music and I've heard it millions of times how could he not have heard of that... I mean this has been bugging me for like a week now, so I put my foot down and decided I was going to figure out what it was before I went to bed or it was just going to keep me awake, wondering what movie I heard it on... So after making my muscle man wake up and try the 'identify this song' app on his phone with no luck, I turned to the internet...
Which if you think about it is really difficult... I mean how do you type into a search engine "hey can you identify this instrumental melody for me? It goes sorta like this da da da da da dum... da da da da da daa...while a harp or something plays in the background" Yeah... It got me nowhere fast, searching for videos of retro sci-fi movie theme songs in hopes that was where I had heard it... And after half an hour or so of that, my mind starts wandering, and I think "maybe it's in Fantasia, I'm sorta thinking Disney when I hear it... But I think Disney (or Star Wars) when I hear just about any piece of music, so after eliminating a good portion of those songs, I go back to searching for old movie soundtracks, since after all that's what the commercial is for, so that would make sense, right? Still no luck...
But thankfully I have a poor friend who messaged me online in my frantic fit of trying to figure it out, and dumped my problem on him when he was just trying to see if we were meeting up the next morning =P And being the genius he obviously is, he quickly found it in a tab on the hulu page the commercial is posted on... *facepalm* I thought I had checked all the tabs! In any case, that post said it was just some random music piece from a composer, it didn't identify it as being used in a specific movie, and damn it, I wanted to know what movie I had heard that song in!!
But this time with song title in hand, it made using a search engine much easier, and directed me to a page showing all the uses of the movement of the symphony I was interested in... (it's Carnival of the Animals, by Camille Saint Saëns, and the specific piece is called "Aquarium" if any of you are being tortured right now as I was...) It's been used in Fantasia, aha! But not that movement, the segment used in Fantasia(2000, not the original) sounds totally different... So I keep reading, it lists several films that have used little bits of it, or different versions, but still nothing that I would have watched and remembered so as being so iconic..It also has a Disney connection in Space Mountain, the California Version's soundtrack uses a rock-and-roll version... yeah, I have that soundtrack, and have listened to it many times riding the WDW space mtn, but it's totally rock, it may be the same notes, but they certainly aren't played the same way.Then it says it's a huge inspiration for the opening of Beauty and the Beast... hmm yeah I see the resemblance, but I'm definitely hearing those exact notes in this movie that I can't see or remember in my head... And then I see it... The use of the song that triggered that AHA! moment I'd been waiting for each time I saw the commercial..So what amazing iconic movie is this fabulous soundtrack from?
Yup... That's a picture of EPCOT's France... You can tell because there are 3 custodians cleaning the streets... And yes... That's the movie... Impressions De France, the circlevision movie tucked under that fake Eiffel Tower and right next to the amazing bakery...
I am such a Disney dork... But I must say, this showing of my dorkiness impressed even me...This soundtrack is about as disney-dorky as it gets, so many Disney influences with it! And just to prove how truly dorky I am, I have heard the actual version of this song hundreds of times, because it's on the official Disney Parks soundtrack I bought in the parks during my college program, and I put that track on the playlist of songs I would listen to while I was studying when I was in school...
So finally, mystery solved! Dorkiness reassured! Cravings for Pastries from France (in EPCOT), not to mention the other hundred foods that flew through my head after thinking about EPCOT? Not yet satiated... *le sigh*
I'm very impressed with your relentless determination to find out the answer and so happy you found it. The music at Impressions De France was my most favorite of all of the soundtracks I heard at Epcot. I wish I could find a copy of the soundtrack to that movie. It was some of the most beautiful music I never heard.
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