I just noticed that we haven't been getting to mechanical music on TV, so
let's!!

I was watching a show that is many years off the air now, it was called
"Doogie Howser MD"  Anyways, there was this episode where a character
(Vinny) borrowed the main character's (Doogie) father's car.  He was
driving this 50's Cadillac when he wasn't watching and crashed into the
back of this moving truck and a player piano fell on it's back onto the
hood of that beautiful car and began playing horizontally!  I don't know
how they got that thing to work on it's back!!  The funny thing was that
this piano was playing by itself just because it fell on a car!

The next example I saw of mechanical music on TV was in an episode of the
Simpsons where Mr. Burns hires all these pro-baseball players for his
team.  Somehow the plot goes on where one of the baseball players tries
to save this woman from her burning house.  The woman in turn, after
thanking him, asks that he save her cat, then her couch, then her washer
and drier, then her player piano, which somehow mysteriously is playing
inside the burning house!  It was playing some patriotic music (of the
US).

Finally, who could forget Cheers?!  On Cheers in every episode you can
see that wonderful nickelodeon in the background, which changes to
another automatic piano in later episodes.  I did see one guy playing it
once, but he was playing by hand.

One more, on an episode of Dennis the Menace, his mom wanted him to take
piano lessons on a new piano she bought.  When the piano was being
unloaded off the truck Dennis decided to get rid of it, and he went
rolling down the street on top of the thing while it was mysteriously
playing itself.

Plus, there is a Coke ad from the 1960s where a group of high school kids
standing around a spinet player while it's playing (it was electrified)
and the ad said something like, music and Coke go good together, or
something to that effect.

Damon Atchison
Damon66@juno.com