Adagio For Strings - Samuel Barber

     As I watch (for 1000th time) American Dad's "In Country...Club" (S05 E01), I'm amazed at how good the episode is. Probably because I always loved vietnam war movies and parodies. This spoof was really well done and if you haven't seen it I strongly advise you to get to it !

     It made me think of all the different sitcoms that played Samuel Barber's "Adagio for Strings" in reference to Platoon.

     So I researched "Samuel Barber" in IMDB and here is a list of episodes that feature that particular piece in chronological order : 

Seinfeld : S08 E06 - "The Fatigues" 1996
The Simpsons : S14 E09 - "Strong Arms of the Ma" 2003
South Park : S08 E 02 - "Up the Down Steroid" 2004
The Simpsons : S18 E17 - "Marge Gamer" 2007
The Simpsons : S19 E06 - "Little Orphan Millie" 2007
American Dad : S05 E01 - "In Country...Club" 2009
How I Met Your Mother : S05 E13 - "Jenkins" 2010

Most of the time, Samuel Barber wasn't credited for "Adagio for Strings" in these episodes.

The movie Platoon came out in 1986 and the "Adagio for Strings" was featured in movies and documentaries as well as sitcoms before but mainly after Platoon.

When Does "Adagio for Strings" Appear :




1. The Fatigues : It appears in a Corean war flashback of George's father, Franck Costanza.

2. Strong arms of the Ma : As Marge, body builded, beats up everyone in Moe's Tavern.



3. Up the down Steroids : As Jimmy beats up his girlfriend and his mother and realizes at the same time what steroids have done to him.

4. Marge Gamer : It appears in a Documentary ("by the BBC and Canal Plouce") on Soccer violence that Homer gives to Lisa as an apology.

5. Little Orphan Millie : The adagio is played when the show turns to a sepia tone and a military car drives to the Simpsons' house to tell Milhouse his parents have been lost at sea.


6. In Country...Club : Appears twice : first time as Steve and Stan leave the helicopter (golf cart) hangar and we see all the "dead" re-enactors that Steve killed. Second time, as Steve is in the country club golf cart hangar and Stan comes to get him and tell him he pushed him to far.

7. Jenkins : Appears when Ted and his students have to drink every time Robin says "but,...um..." on air and they realize she is saying it on purpose but have to follow the "rules". Re-appears at the very end in Ted's classroom where he and his students are hungover.

Summing Up :

There is only one episode that plays the Adagio for Strings in a vietnam war context (n°6), three that play it in a military context (n° 1, 5 and 6), two that play it in a war context (n°1 and 6), four that play it in a violent context (n° 2, 3, 4 and 6 ; you could add n°1 but it's not at all the same kind of violence), one that plays it with none of the characters (n°5), and one that plays it in a drinking context (n°7).

However, in each episode, there is a question of inevitability and despair that brings on the music.

Now, for "Little Orphan Millie", there is something I'd like to add concerning the "inevitability" part. The scene just before the military car comes to give the news, little Milhouse says "I wish my parents never come back.". In sitcoms, that kind of sentence can't be harmless. Any time a character wishes for something that important in the first ten minutes of a twenty minute episode, you can be sure he'll get his wish come true, following the maxim "Be careful what you wish for". Milhouse actually tells us explicitly that he just wished for his parents to never return (I'll write a post on insuring information with repetition in sitcoms).

     The reason I really like the American Dad episode is because, finally, the wound of Vietnam is healing. Through humour and parodies, a society or culture starts to look back on its past and understand it to be better prepared for the future (that's actually the theme of my Masters Degree research). Look at the movie Tropic Thunder, it's the same thing. It usually goes like this :

First : The traumatic event

Second : The telling of the event

Third : Laughing about the event

     All this just to say that stories, jokes, humour, anecdotes... are all a part of a society rebuilding itself on the ruins of a certain event. Humour is not a bad thing nor is it degrading and insulting to those who lived the event. "Laughing scares away the monsters". It doesn't mean we don't respect the vietnam war veterans. I believe that's the way to be sure we don't forget. 

So laugh !

Than you,

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TRJ