Behind the Tunes: Merrie Melodies - Carl Stalling and Cartoon Music (2003 Video) User Reviews

Carl Stalling 101

[movieman_kev · 7/10 · 2 November 2005]

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+

Carl Stalling is credited with scoring or adding music to at least . . .

[oscaralbert · 7/10 · 19 February 2016]

. . . 1,413 cartoons, mostly for the Warner Bros. Looney Tunes Animated Shorts Division. Since this adds up to more than 200 hours of music, you cannot listen to all of it in one day (even if you pull an All-Nighter). It would take at least five work weeks to run through all of it once, and even longer to become proficient at it on a single instrument. Movie composers such as Max Steiner, Franz Waxman, and John Williams walk away with all the Oscars because their Orchestrators keep the copy machines running longer for each of their bloated "feature" flicks. But why should Steiner be considered a genius for repeating his "Tara Theme" 400 times in GONE WITH THE WIND, when Stalling's music turns on a dime 50 times in six or seven minutes? If movie audiences were composed entirely of insomniacs who paid theater admissions just for the sake of being lulled to sleep, I'd say go ahead, and reward those of the Steiner ilk for penning the lullabies needed for a successful Snooze-a-Thon. Otherwise, make concise geniuses such as Stalling eligible for the "Best Score" Oscar, and give Carl's estate a dozen retroactive statuettes!

Makes Me Apprciation The Music More

[ccthemovieman-1 · 7/10 · 3 March 2007]

"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.

"The idea of recording to a clique . . . "

[cricket30 · 7/10 · 20 March 2016]

" . . . came from Carl Stalling," one of the four "talking heads" reveals during this very brief (barely four minutes) "Behind-the-Tunes" offering from the Warner Bros. Looney Tunes DVD department, MERRIE MELODIES: CARL STALLING AND CARTOON MUSIC. Furthermore, the quartet of guys providing sound bites here allege that ALL recording artists subsequent to Mr. Stalling (who retired in the 1950s) adopted his Metronomic "Clique Method" of laying down their tracks. Though I vaguely recall once hearing something about "Clique Beatles" awhile back, I know I did not associate this with John, Paul, Ringo, and George at the time. The late Stan Freberg ("Pete Puma's" voice, who appeared on the Oscar Broadcast's "In Memoriam" list just last month) says here that prior to Mr. Stalling utilizing them for cartoons, the 90-piece Warner Bros. Orchestra was primarily a Pinochle Clique, sitting around playing cards "between scoring Bogart movies" (and Humphrey made just 76 flicks, many of which came out from other studios than Warner). So I think Mr. Stalling was on the right track to transform musicians from card-playing cliques into background playing cliques.