The Movies Rides Again

For decades, I was on a mini-mission to get the Motion Picture Academy to open their Oscar broadcast with a particularly wonderful song that, though it had a bit of shelf-life in country music, I figured they wouldn't know.  I actually came close -- not to accomplishing my task, but having access to making the suggestion -- when my former boss at Universal Studios, Bob Rehme, was made president of the Academy.  Alas, I didn't have the contact information that would have helped and didn't make the effort -- which probably wouldn't have been too difficult, even it was before Google searches -- to track it down (hence never getting beyond being just a "mini-mission").
 
The idea time has long-since passed, since the group who sang the song, the Statler Brothers, have retired, and also some of the references in the song -- while many are still classic -- aren't all likely as impactful on today's audience.  Still, it's a very fun song, and would make an enjoyable number in the middle of the broadcast, sung by a cobbled-together quartet of movie stars singing.  Or the Statlers themselves could come out of retirement.  They did briefly a couple years ago for an event when elected into a country music Hall of Fame.
 
But no, that's not going to happen.  But it doesn't stop me from at least presenting the song on the day of the Oscar broadcast.  So, here it is -- one of the most affectionate and clever songs I've heard about movies. And it fits perfectly into the portfolio of "list" songs that the Statlers were so well-known for, over a career that began with “Flowers on the Wall, written by the group’s Lew DeWitt…who, as it happens, wrote this song, as well.
 
Indeed, the name of the song is "The Movies."