Customer Reviews

The Carl Stalling Project: Music From Warner Bros. Cartoons, 1936-1958

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Even if you do not recognize his name, Carl Stalling is a very familiar composer. He wrote the soundtrack for many of our young lives as the composer for Warner Bros.' "Merrie Melodies" and "Looney Tunes" cartoons from late 1930's to late 1970's. Hal Willner has compiled this CD that for the first time lets you hear the music on its own, and lets you realize just how much of the cartoons' impact came from Stalling's music.

Willner sifted through hundreds of cartoons to choose about 40 with the most significant music. He presents the music in a variety of formats. A few tracks provide the soundtrack for a single entire cartoon. Others are medlies from a certain period in Stalling's career or pieces that set a particular mood (such as the "Anxiety Montage"). There are also tapes from recording sessions for 1951's "Putty Tat Trouble" that give insight on how this music was recorded. I couldn't recommend this CD any more highly. (After you've given it a listen, check out a Raymond Scott "best of" album like "Reckless Nights and Turkish Twilights" to see just how many of its tracks are familiar from various cartoons.)

Stalling's music, instead of following the traditional rules of musical structure (exposition, development, theme, variations, etc.), was written to follow the rapid action of cartoons. Stalling would not compromise on this, even if it meant having the 50-piece orchestra play fortissimo for five seconds and then having only one piccolo playing the next four seconds. To ensure a perfect correspondence between the sound and the image, Stalling and the cartoon's directors would agree on a few sketches and on the timing of the action. This enabled Stalling to compose and record the music without even seeing the movie. Carl Stalling was also a master at telling a story through music, with gestures so clear, that there is never any doubt as to his intentions.

Stalling once said, "One problem with cartoons today is that they have so much dialogue the music doesn't mean much." Unfortunately, this statement rings true as we move into 2004. But keeping Carl Stalling from rolling in his grave is not why you need to buy this CD. You need it because it is IMPOSSIBLE to maintain a bad mood while this CD is playing. You need this to listen to as a stress reducer on those tough days. You need this because it is complete childhood in a disc.

I challenge you to turn on your television and watch some Looney Tunes. Turn up the volume and listen while doing something else (wash dishes, write a paper perhaps.) I guarantee you will know exactly what is happening, and to whom. This was the comedic skill and genius talent of Carl Stalling.

As Porky Pig would say: "abieh-abieh-abieh... That's All Folks!"

Although I was familiar with most or all of the music on this CD, I'd never heard of Carl Stalling. Well, to my delight, he turns out to be one of the most important composers ever to write movie scores, right up there with Maurice Jaubert and Nino Rota and John Williams, as far as I am concerned. He was a true original. He wrote the scores for the Warner Brothers cartoons from 1936 to 1958.

This CD is not only a tribute to Stalling, it is also the most entertaining, endearing, smile-engendering, memory-invoking, guffaw-getting album you'll hear in quite a while. I postively guarantee that you will love this album if you were EVER a child--if you EVER joined your friends to sneak into a Saturday matinee and cheer when our hero Bugs Bunny foiled the villain--if you EVER laughed uncontrollably when you heard, "I taught I taw a Puddy-tat"--if you EVER felt forlorn when you heard our pal Porky stutter "Th-th-that's all, F-f-folks!" Stalling wrote the perfect music that we heard in "our subconscious" while we watched those "Looney Tunes" and "Merrie Melodies."

Just the titles of the various selections will put you in the right mood: "Gorilla My Dreams" and "I Got Plenty Of Mutton" and "Puss 'N' Booty" and "To Itch His Own" (Stalling's last score- 1958) to name just four.

As Hal Wilner writes in his introduction to Stalling and the CD, "It (the CD) contains some soundtracks by one of the greatest film composers/arrangers from some of the finest films ever made."

Buy this album and I dare you to play it just once. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED.

In 1990 Warner Bros. released, “The Carl Stalling Project: Music From Warner Bros. Cartoons 1936-1958” and the world rejoiced. Well perhaps that is a bit of an exaggeration but its safe to say that this long overdue tribute goes a long way in finally raising Stalling to his rightful position as one of the great American composers of the 20th century. This CD was an unlikely gift from Warner Bros. not because of Stalling’s lack of notoriety, on the contrary, Stalling has an ever-growing and loyal fan base It has more to do with the very nature of cartoon music itself. The rapid pace of animation with its constant bombardment of action, storm and stress, and story twists makes cartoon scores very unique in their conception and form. Stripping away the visual aspect of Carl Stalling’s work allows the audience a whole new perspective on Stalling genius. Stalling was a revolutionary in his use of rhythm. Every cue he ever wrote was a complex structure of timings, webbed together to create atmosphere that was pure comedic silliness. The format for which he wrote allowed him to break free from traditional musical form and convention and thus his music was unique to anything else that came before it. In the early days of Warner Bros., Stalling’s gift for timing materialized with his invention of the tick system, one which is still used by composers today to keep orchestra members synchronized with the picture. The beauty of this CD is that it allows one to immediately recognize the plethora of wondrous nuances that characterized Stalling’s style. While Carl drew from contemporaries including, Raymond Scott, Ellington and others, his voice was unmistakably different. His daring use of the orchestra is a prime example. Stalling wasn’t afraid to use a huge fifty piece orchestra playing fortissimo for one second and then all of a sudden have solo flute playing at a barely audible level the next. His ability to build drama and tension in this way was unparalleled, just one listen to his score for he Turntale Wolf is enough to make you laugh, jump and gasp, just due to the arrangement. Yet another great element to this CD is the insert that comes with it. Yeah it might be a bit superficial and silly but this tiny little booklet of sorts contains sketches, manuscripts, collages of scripts, liner notes from several different producers, photographs of the Warner Bros. sessions, and much more. However, if you’re looking for a less material reason to check out this CD, the way in which the music was put together is probably unlike any recording you have ever heard. Many of the tracks are intimate session recordings where you can actually hear Stalling giving out orders, calling on stops, and even making one or two cynical remarks about the musicians. While I wouldn’t all together call it educational, it is certainly interesting, if not amusing. I wish I could go on forever about this CD and the man behind it. Film music is particularly important to my life as I hope to one day be a film composer myself. Bernard Herrmann, Danny Elfman, Howard Shore, Jerry Goldsmith; these are all musicians which I hold high on a pedestal but Carl Stalling holds a special place in my heart. It was this man’s music that made up my first musical memories, and in a very real sense he was my first musical influence ever. Its difficult to come to terms with the fact that Stalling will never join the ranks of his peers, Ives, Cage, and Copland. For he, just as these other American visionaries, helped defined our nation’s musical voice and style. I mean jeez, the least you could do is buy the friggen CD!!.......With all honesty and sincerity, you won’t regret it. -- Jesse M. Switzer

Every once in a while, an artist comes along that makes such an impact in their field that eventually their contribution becomes a prototype for others to model their ideas from. Carl W. Stalling is part of that rare breed of artists. From Beethoven to Brahms, Gershwin to Porter, Beatles to Hendrix, Williams to Goldsmith, (to name a few) Carl Stalling is part of such an elite group. Totally original, and innovative. Mr. Stallings works will be studied, and analyzed by students of the genre for all eternity as any great artists works have, and will continue to be. Where appropriate, you just can't help but laugh at Mr. Stallings use of the Oboe, Bassoon, and Contra Bassoon to convey the feelings of suspense, wonder, and overall to boost the comedic marriage of the visual, and the underlying score where the visual would not stand up quite the same on its own. The Carl Stalling Project vols. 1 & 2, should be in any serious music buffs collection. Now, how many lumps would you like; 3 or 4? :-) -Larry Contreras- CAPTAINLC@AOL.COM

Carl Stalling's cartoon scores are both amazing and instantly recognizable. His use of musical cliches is still unsurpassed, and he raised the level of mere cartoon background music to a new level of avant-garde insanity. Toon music hasn't been the same since he retired from Warner Brothers back in 1958. It never will be. These 2 CDs, along with the "Carl Stalling Project" CD will make a believer out of you. You'll find yourself laughing at many parts, because you'll be visualizing the moments from those WB classics you were raised on, and have probably seen a zillion times. They're still funny, and the big reason is that subliminal background music from Carl Stalling that acts as the glue for over 20 years of Warner classic cartoons. Wonderful. - Paula Mason - END

Carl Stalling is the composer you KNOW, even if you don't recognize his name. He wrote the soundtrack for many of our young lives as the composer for Warner Bros.' "Merrie Melodies" and "Looney Tunes" cartoons from 1936 to 1958. Hal Willner has compiled this CD that for the first time lets you hear the music on its own, and lets you realize just how much of the cartoons' impact came from Stalling's music. It's more than coincidence that the cartoons had a big drop-off in quality right around the time Stalling retired. The arrangements twist and turn in a millisecond, the clever orchestrations include some sophisticated early use of electric guitars as sound effects, and the quotes from popular songs (and from the canon of eccentric jazz composer Raymond Scott) were so influential that today we know the standard "Arkansas Traveler" primarily as "I'm Bringing Home a Baby Bumblebee" and Mendelssohn's "Fingal's Cave" as the theme song for the Mynah Bird.

But that's not why you need to buy this CD. You need it because it is IMPOSSIBLE to maintain a bad mood when this CD is playing. You need this to listen to as a stress reducer on those tough days. You need this because it is chilhood in a disc.

Willner sifted through hundreds of cartoons to choose about 40 with the most significant music. He presents the music in a variety of formats. A few tracks provide the soundtrack for a single entire cartoon. Others are medlies from a certain period in Stalling's career or pieces that set a particular mood (such as the "Anxiety Montage"). There are also tapes from recording sessions for 1951's "Putty Tat Trouble" that give insight on how this music was recorded. I couldn't recommend this CD any more highly. (After you've given it a listen, check out a Raymond Scott "best of" album like "Reckless Nights and Turkish Twilights" to see just how many of its tracks are familiar from various cartoons.)

Carl Stalling gave me the best musical education I ever had. I'm spending the rest of my life learning the titles and composers of all the hundreds of tunes I first heard in his cartoon scores. I've had this CD ever since it came out, and it still is one of my favorites.

Only a handful of tracks are a complete score from one cartoon; most are snippets from several cartoons edited together with a common theme.

This CD is about a composer and his music, more than about the cartoons for which he composed it. To drive home this point, it includes the score from, of all things, 1939's "The Good Egg." No one would consider "The Good Egg" to be among the best Warner cartoons, but the score, heard by itself, turns out to be a tour de force that is highly representative of Stalling's work. That's what makes this CD such a great listening experience: It was pieced together by musicologists who chose the music based on its auditory qualities, and not on the relative fame of the cartoon associated with it. It is not merely a trip down memory lane (although it is that, too), but is a great creative work in its own right.

Despite the vast amount of Stalling music that exists, this CD provides as ambitious and exhaustive an overview as can be given, and its 1995 follow-up, while also worth having, is but a pale afterthought. There's no following this act.

Carl Stallings music has been listened to and enjoyed more than any other composer/musician in the history of the planet. FACT These two CD's are perfect examples of a musical giant working at the peak of his craft with the greatest musicians available (The L.A. Philharmonic moonlighting). And as if that isnt enough, Carl Stalling was the first voice of Mickey Mouse (in fact he funded Walt Disney's move from Kansas to Hollywood) and invented the click-track. Go check my page dedicated to him on my website (www.biggeorge.co.uk)

It's only right that the best cartoons ever made would have the best music. In fact, one of the reasons Warner Brothers' cartoons are the best is because of Carl Stalling's ability to compose just the right music to go with each cartoon moment. I always play this CD for friends who haven't heard it and they all had to buy it the next day. It's a fun CD to own and it will make you smile each time you hear it.

To truly appreciate this music, remember that it follows the action of the cartoons. Musically, it has no conventional sense of rhythm, time, or progression. Very quirky, fun, and enlightening. Essential stuff.