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Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!bonnie!wjh
From: wjh@bonnie.UUCP (Bill Hery)
Newsgroups: net.games.trivia
Subject: Re: Who is Petrillo?
Message-ID: <639@bonnie.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 2-Dec-85 00:00:22 EST
Article-I.D.: bonnie.639
Posted: Mon Dec  2 00:00:22 1985
Date-Received: Tue, 3-Dec-85 07:24:58 EST
References: <415@tekig4.UUCP>
Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories, Whippany NJ
Lines: 17

> 	As long as we're discussing cartoons around here, maybe someone
> out there can help me. In the Bugs Bunny cartoon "Hurdy-Gurdy Hare"
> in which Bugs buys a hurdy-gurdy and monkey, fires the monkey, and then
> eventually gets the gorilla to collect for him, Bugs' last line is:
> "I sure hope Petrillo doesn't here about this." My question is: who is
> Petrillo. I thought it might be the guy he bought the stuff from, but I
> can't remember enough about the episode to support this. Or maybe he was
> someone well-known back in the 40's?
>
I believe the head of the musicains usion in the early-mid 1940's was named
Petrillo.  During that period, there were two strikes against the record
companies (I don't recall the issues off hand) that led to two intervals
(one over a year) of no new recordings being made by union musicians
(which included most major artists).  I don't know about the
effect on other forms of music, but the ban kept much of the experimental
early modern jazz (be-bop: Charlie Parker, Dizzie Gillespie, Thelonious
Monk) from being adequately documented.