The Carl Stalling Project

Carl Stalling

Warner Brothers Studio Orchestra

album cover

A Cartoon Universe in Sound

Some pop culture pundits argue that it's possible to glean a fair understanding of the world just by watching old cartoons. If that's even a teensy bit true, part of the edification comes through sound: The music accompanying short animated films—particularly those made by Warner Brothers during the 1936–1958 tenure of composer Carl Stalling—greatly enhances the story, capturing not just the madcap action but the essential quirks of the characters, their underlying motivations.

Bugs Bunny and the others in those classic cartoons don't talk much, and Stalling took advantage of that, using pirouetting bits of mood music as a kind of shorthand. One scene would culminate with a thundering orchestral peak, and then might come a serenely trilling solo piccolo to signify the calm after the storm. Stalling's scores are outsized schemes of tension and release, cut to fit the everchanging requirements of the cat-and-mouse chase.

Listening without the visuals may initially seem pointless—these "tunes" don't unfold in routine or expected ways, that's for sure. But Stalling was a resourceful appropriator, lacing his scores with bits of ethnic music, weird orchestral effects (one is called "Anxiety Montage"), or references to the classics (for several generations now, kids have associated his twist on the "Valkyrie" leitmotif, from Richard Wagner's Die Walküre (see p. 839), with Elmer Fudd's immortal "Kill the Wabbit"). Worth it for the sliding-down-banisters pennywhistles and the clanging metal-on-metal smashups and muted-trumpet scowls, these delightful scores might send you flying off the cliff, but they'll have you smiling all the way down.

Genre: Jazz
Released: 1990, Warner Bros.
Key Tracks: "Anxiety Montage," "Dinner Music for a Pack of Hungry Cannibals," "Putty Tat Trouble"
Next Stop: Raymond Scott: Reckless Nights and Turkish Twilights
After That: Ennio Morricone: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly
Book Pages: 734–735

Buy this Recording

Share this page: