Abdul Abulbul Amir
Abdul Abulbul Amir is a poem written in 1877 by Percy French and later set to music. Because of an oversight on French's publishers behalf (see letter here) they forgot to copyright the song and lost out on much of the revenue generated by its popularity in later years. The song tells the story of two valiant heroes — a Russian, Ivan Skavinsky Skavar, and one of the Shah's Mamelukes, Abdul Abulbul Amir — who because of their pride end up in a fight and kill each other.
Frank Crumit, who was famous for his renditions of it, wrote three sequels: "The Return of Abdul Abulbul Amir", "The Grandson Of Abdul Abulbul Amir", and "Minnie Skavinsky Skavar".
In the 1980s Whitbread adapted the song using their own lyrics for a series of commercials on British television, suggesting that the two protagonists were great fans of their beer who squabbled over trivialities. It starred Stephen Fry as Ivan, Tony Cosmo as Abdul, Tim McInerny and Roy Castle.
During the 1950's a version of the song "Abdul The Bulbul Ameer" (sic) was popular in America. The score shown is for Ben Pollock and his Orchestra on Calumet Music Co. and dates from 1935. The same song was adapted in 1941 into an MGM cartoon produced by Fred Quimby, directed by Hugh Harman and featuring Groucho Marx, Lou Costello and Harry Ritz as news reporters. In this version Abdul is depicted as a bully who picks on Ivan's dwarf friend, provoking Ivan into treading on the Turk's toe. He has many traits of 1930s and 1940s cartoon villains like Bluto including thick lips, a beard and a big belly. There is a brief swordfight which soon changes into a brawl that ends with Ivan and Abdul literally "out cold". The more positive portrayal of the Russians could be due to the alliance between Britain and the USSR following Hitler's invasion of Russia.
In the 1980s Whitbread adapted the song using their own lyrics for a series of commercials on British television, suggesting that the two protagonists were great fans of their beer who squabbled over trivialities. It starred Stephen Fry as Ivan, Tony Cosmo as Abdul, Tim McInerny and Roy Castle.