The ploy of well-known, predictable music pieces gone awry had been practiced by artists as diverse as Stan Freberg, Spike Jones, and P. D. Q. Bach.

The skit was a live-action version of a child's animatronic wind-up music box, performed to the tune "Solfeggio" by Robert Maxwell.

When Ernie Kovacs heard the Maxwell record, he immediately came up with a mental image of what would become The Nairobi Trio:[3] "Solfeggio" became the permanent theme song for the sketch.

Composer Maxwell recorded a new, lyrics-free version of the melody, now known as "Song of the Nairobi Trio," in 1961, billing his ensemble as "The Fortune Tellers."

Seated at a piano at screen right was a female simian, variously played by Barbara Loden, Jolene Brand, and Kovacs's wife, Edie Adams, who robotically thumped her hands up and down on the keys.

Edie Adams later said that the skits were simple enough for any one of Kovacs's friends and associates to step into the drummer's role without needing a rehearsal, and that the gorilla masks provided anonymity.