Dance of the Hours is a ballet from the opera La Gioconda composed by Amilcare Ponchielli.
The ballet was used in the Walt Disney animated film Fantasia, albeit with ballet-dancing hippos (complete with tutus), ostriches, alligators and elephants.[1] Some of the orchestration was revised by conductor Leopold Stokowski.
The piece may best be recognized from one segment of it that formed the basis for the hit song "Hello Muddah, Hello Fadduh" and its sequel "Return to Camp Granada" by Allan Sherman. That same segment has also been used in television advertisements (Velveeta, et al.) as recently as 2005. It is also the source of the tune for the song "Like I Do", a hit for Maureen Evans in 1962.
Choreographer Christopher Wheeldon created a new rendition of Dance of the Hours for his ballet company, Morphoses [1]. The work was featured in the company's New York debut, on October 17, 2007.