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In the first in-depth examination of music written for Hollywood animated cartoons of the 1930's through the 1950's, Daniel Goldmark provides a brilliant account of the enormous creative effort that went into setting cartoons to music and shows how this effort shaped the characters and stories that have become embedded in American culture. Focusing on classical music, opera, and jazz, Goldmark considers the genre and compositional style of cartoons produced by major Hollywood animation studios, including Warner Bros., MGM, Lantz, and the Fleischer's. Tunes for 'Toons discusses several well-known cartoons in detail, including What's Opera, Doc?, the 1957 Warner Bros. parody of Wagner and opera that is one of the most popular cartoons ever created. Goldmark pays particular attention to the work of Carl Stalling and Scott Bradley, arguably the two most influential composers of music for theatrical cartoons. Though their musical backgrounds and approaches to scoring differed greatly, Stalling and Bradley together established a unique sound for animated comedies that has not changed in more than seventy years. Using a rich range of sources including cue sheets, scores, informal interviews, and articles from hard-to-find journals, the author evaluates how music works in an animated universe. Reminding readers of the larger context in which films are produced and viewed, this book looks at how studios employed culturally charged music to inspire their stories and explores the degree to which composers integrated stylistic elements of jazz and the classics into their scores.

Animated film music --- Animated films --- Music for animated films --- Motion picture music --- History and criticism. --- 20th century american film history. --- 20th century animation history. --- american culture. --- animation. --- carl stalling. --- cartoon opera. --- cartoons. --- classical music. --- cue sheets. --- entertainment industry. --- film studies. --- golden age of animation. --- hollywood animated cartoons. --- hollywood animation studios. --- jazz. --- lantz. --- mgm. --- music and animation. --- music studies. --- music. --- musicality. --- opera. --- popular music. --- scott bradley. --- silly symphonies. --- swing culture. --- the fleischers. --- theatrical cartoons. --- warner bros. --- whats opera doc.