Lancaster Caramel Commercial Pronunciation vs #TheMusicMan

For people who've never visited Lancaster, Pennsylvania, you will probably be unfamiliar with locals' persnicketiness on the pronunciation of their home county. I was never able to properly pronounce the county's name to locals' satisfaction (it sounds something like "Linkester"). I usually just stuck with the standard pronunciation across the English speaking world of "Lane-cast-ter". I guess my pronounciation was closest with Webster's 2nd :

The voice over in this Lancaster, Pennsylvania propaganda video seems to use the 1st pronunciation:


as does the voice over for Hershey's new caramel commercial (which, of course, brings up whole new debate over the pronunciation of "caramel" vs "carmel"):

People who pronounce "caramel" like "car-muhl" have to be miserable.

— Return of the Mack (@SupaheroNick) April 1, 2015

Obviously, some youtube commenters are just as frustrated as I am with the pronunciation controversy:

Commercialcritic seems to feel same way about the voice over "Lancaster" pronunciation same way the poor bedraggled husband feels about "chaise" vs "chase" in VCF ad:

"Lancaster" pronunciation controversy is very reminiscent of "Iowa Stubborn" lyrics from "The Music Man":

Man: "You are in Ioway."
Prof Hill: "Ioway? At least now I know how to pronounce it.  I always thought you folks preferred Iowah"
1st Woman: "We do."
Prof Hill: "But he just said Ioway"
2nd Woman: "We say it now and then but we don't like anybody else to."

As a minor footnote to history, I believe the controversy over the proper pronunciation of the name "Lancaster" was, in all likelihood, the primary reason why they were deposed from the English throne by the York family during the War of the Roses. A history lesson from "Looking for Richard"

Al Pacino: "Before the [ Shakespeare ] play 'Richard III' starts, we got to know a little bit about what happened before the play starts -- and what happened is we've just been through a civil war, you know, called the War of the Roses, in which the Lancasters and the Yorks ... clashed. Two rival families, and the Yorks won. They beat the Lancasters, and they're now in power. And Richard is a York." 

Comparing the plot of the War of Roses to the fictional "Games of Thrones" is a topic of a TedTalk:

#GameofThrones The Stark family are the Yorkist's equivalent, but is Stannis Baratheon #RichardIII ? According... http://t.co/0NRhrJjHoJ

— Andrea Povey (@Richard1483) May 27, 2015

In case the above youtube link breaks, here's another video of the caramel ad:

You'll notice that this abbreviated ad also removes the anachronistic and geographically incongruous footage of 1906 San Francisco, which also seemed to upset a goodly number of youtubers:

As Richard III 's long lost namesake,  Peppermint Patty, a proppos of nothing, @3:10 sang in "Snoopy, the Musical" "I know now that the price of a thought is a penny":

#TheGoodWife operatic interlude "O mio babbino caro"

I obviously disagree with this tweet:

One aspect of #THEGOODWIFE that doesn't get nearly the attention it deserves: the music.
— Michael Ausiello (@MichaelAusiello) September 22, 2014

because as a former band nerd, I always pay attention to television shows background music.

There are obviously other music nerds, to wit (yes it's "wit" not "whit"),  Christophe Caron Soriano who takes the original audio, strips out the actors' dialogue yackity yacking, and posts the music soundtrack:

Si ceux comme moi ont été marqués par la BO exceptionnelle du 6x11 de The Good Wife, c'est par ici à partir de 15:50 https://t.co/8sfE8JVYWF

— Captain Hype. (@CarlitoDNole) January 8, 2015

.@CarlitoDNole I thought I was the only music nerd who likes listening to the background music &gets annoyed when actors talk over the score

— Bossy Adagio (@adagioforstring) August 21, 2015

"The Good Wife" Se6Ep1 "The Line" episode opened with an instrumental song whose title I couldn't remember:

TuneFind wasn't helpful because it only goes to season 5.

HeardOnTV was also not helpful because apparently they don't list classical music on soundtracks (I thought).

At first I thought the song sounded like Liszt - Liebesträume in A-Flat Major, Dreams of Love 

Then I thought it vaguely sounded like the theme to "Upstairs, Downstairs"

then my neurons fired and my Carl Sagan "Cosmos" binders opened up:

@bennettdavis172 @MEEchelleO Carl Sagan would've been able to go into my brain & find the missing neuron binder :-) http://t.co/TgqKAr9TG4
— Bossy Adagio (@adagioforstring) June 1, 2014

and I vaguely recalled a Classic Arts Showcase clip which I incorrectly remembered (I'm not the only one) as "O Bambino" but is actually "O mio babbino caro" from "Gianni Schicchi" composed by Giacomo Puccini

Youtube if very polite and spellchecks you without overtly judging you on being culturally illiterate:

Then, it further dawned on me I could try to corroborate this answer by double checking attributed songs from the last episode from last season: Se5Ep22 "A Weird Year"

and they helpfully remind people that this song was also featured in the historical Brit flick "A Room with a View":

However, they neglected to point out that it's the same song Woodstock whistles for Peppermint Patty's ice dancing program in "She's a Good Skate, Charlie Brown " when her taperecorder malfunctions:




I agree with Joseph Ryan's critique of the then ten soulless people who voted the Snoopy video down:

and more recently, "O mio babbino caro" made a cameo in "Gotham":

Alan took our Fierce Female quiz and got Emma Thompson. Take the quiz to find out your FF! http://t.co/jkc0L8c1V8 pic.twitter.com/C9maqQALYC

— NY Philharmonic (@nyphil) June 4, 2015

Conversely, answering "O mio babbino caro" on the New York Philharmonic buzzfeed quiz: "Which Fierce Female Are You?"

helps one to be described as NY Phil fierce female, Maria Callas:

And thus it would only make sense to end with a Maria Callas performance of  "Oh Mio Babbino Caro" uploaded by Daniel Kurganov: