Behind the Tunes: Merrie Melodies - Carl Stalling and Cartoon Music

This short four minute featurette, which can be found as an extra on Disc 3 of the Looney Tunes Golden Collection Volume 1. It's nothing more than a basic primer about the orchestral scoring of the WB cartoons, I'm thinking, with an eye geared for newbies to the classical Looney Tunes. It details Carl Stallings great work, but is still really REALLY basic stuff (the same can be said for pretty much all the other Behind the Toons feauterettes that are on Volume 1, fortunately the Behind the Tune features would get so much better starting with the ones found on volume 2).

My Grade: C+

"One of the most major things, if not THE most major thing, about a Warner Brothers cartoon is the absolute symphonic of the orchestra," notes LT vocalist Stan Freberg. "Even at Disney, they didn't do this," adds Freberg, who gives a history of how the WB studio orchestra came to be used for cartoons.

The man in charge of the music was Carl Stalling, who is credited with about 500 musical scores! Other contributors to this feature short give examples of how orchestral instruments were used as sound effects on these WB cartoons, something I took for granted, frankly. I guess I'll never "hear" a cartoon again so carelessly. This was a "Behind The Tunes" feature that was on the Looney Tunes Golden Collection Volume One DVD.