Carl Stalling

Despite unexpected revolutionary techniques, cartoon music is a form not often explored or analyzed. As film historians have “considered music near the bottom of the hierarchy of cinematic import,” cartoon music has been overlooked even more drastically given its reputation as a throw-away form of amusement. In recent years, investigation into the work has been revitalized, especially examining the contributions of Carl Stalling. His music for Looney Tunes is an essential element to the catalog—perhaps even rivaling Chuck Jones and Tex Avery as one of the most influential figures from the Warner Brothers animation studio. During his 20-year stint, he produced music for over 600 productions, often scoring at least one cartoon a week. This overload of work contributes greatly to Stalling’s aesthetic, one that very overtly quoted phrases from pop hits, classical symphonies and re-interpretations of folk-songs. It was this quotation that Stalling enlivened the cartoons he composed for—adding dynamism and unpredictability to the works that already bypassed linear stories to focus on gags as a method to propel narrative. Stalling’s work was championed by John Zorn, a musician who helped put together a pair of compilation CDs in the ‘90s.

There They Go Go Go

Stalling wrote his work for animated films, but the fact shouldn’t overshadow that his music was not only a vehicle for accompaniment, but also an object in itself to be observed. So when a tentative flute stumbles along through “There They Go Go Go” and is abruptly placed against a marching band gone haywire, the immediate association speaks to the musical vocabulary of an animated chase scene. But stripping the music of its context as animation’s accompaniment, “There They Go Go Go” instead is a clash of phrases that the listener must always attempt to catch up with the unpredictable shifts—intellectually bridging the differing tones, creating new associations between seemingly disparate music.

Anxiety Montage

Stalling’s use of musical phrasing was openly defined by no more than a ‘curious association’—one that occurs when he pairs a plodding pastoral melody into an ominous chorus of anxious strings without a discernible traditional musical development (or even cues) found in “Anxiety Montage.” When forced to be in opposition of each other, they create a tone or meaning that cannot be expressed by either, separately. While the music was originally intended to support and amplify a cartoon’s series of gags, the music’s overarching structure sounds completely displaced without the anchor of the cartoon’s visual component. Instead, when removing the cartoon from cartoon music, Stalling also undermines musical development and is instead marked by echoes of a plot forgotten. The music instead focuses on the tension formed by the collision of independent musical phrases.

Powerhouse and Other Cuts from the 50s

Rather than patching over the firm breaks that is caused by film editing, the use of mickey-mousing (of pairing visual and musical cues) creates an environment where the image holds together the discontinuous accompaniment of the music. In an interesting comparison, within Stalling’s cartoon music the firm breaks of motifs gain motivation when paired with the image, and each cut is actually softened by the synchronicity to image. When detached from the image, however, the primary motivation is lost and with it, the music’s encompassing compositional frame-work. The music instead becomes an explosion or cacophony of unexpected juxtapositions, unseen transitions in rhythm, tone and quotation. Like Stalling’s “Powerhouse,” the repeated change in tone and rhythm finds each section screaming for attention, and regularly breaks from expectation. A gunshot, zings of electric guitar sputter around and arpeggios of violins all cut-into a myriad of music styles, from a bar-room piano to an undertakers slow dirge. The basis of mickey-mousing to gags assures the fact that at no moment the music will maintain a direct course for longer than a couple of seconds.

[find more information about Carl Stalling here, the two compilation albums can be bought off of Amazon.com here and here]