Best cartoon music

[M'Sharak]

Generally speaking, you can't beat the Warner Brothers' classic cartoons music. Not just the classical adaptations [I was at the Bolshoi in Moscow seeing "Barber of Seville" and people behind me were talking about Bugs Bunny. I'll confess, that Bugs was first in my thoughts too.] but the use of popular music. If you don't recognize the melody of "I've Got Plenty of Money, and You," you miss out on a lot of jokes.

That sort of thing is the gift that keeps on giving, too. A few months ago, we rented a collection of old Looney Tunes cartoons from Netflix, and in a short I hadn't seen in years (Tweety's S.O.S. (1951) set on a cruise ship) there's bit where Tweety, being chased by Sylvester, turns around and holds up a painting of a ship at sea and rocks it back and forth, causing Sylvester to get seasick and dash for the rail. The music played while the painting is rocking is none other than the tempest music from Wagner's The Flying Dutchman, which fact escaped me years ago and almost made fall out of my chair this time.

 

[Goliath]

A few months ago, we rented a collection of old Looney Tunes cartoons from Netflix, and in a short I hadn't seen in years (Tweety's S.O.S. (1951) set on a cruise ship) there's bit where Tweety, being chased by Sylvester, turns around and holds up a painting of a ship at sea and rocks it back and forth, causing Sylvester to get seasick and dash for the rail. The music played while the painting is rocking is none other than the tempest music from Wagner's The Flying Dutchman, which fact escaped me years ago and almost made fall out of my chair this time.

Classical composers have also taken inspiration from cartoons. The third movement of John Adams' Chamber Symphony is actually entitled "Roadrunner." He describes its composition as follows:

I was sitting in my studio, studying the score to Schoenberg's Chamber Symphony, and as I was doing so I became aware that my seven-year-old son Sam was in the adjacent room watching cartoons (good cartoons, old ones from the '50s). The hyperactive, insistently aggressive and acrobatic scores for the cartoons mixed in my head with the Schoenberg music, itself hyperactive, acrobatic and not a little aggressive, and I realized suddenly how much these two traditions had in common.

 

[kalysto]

Ren and Stimpy has my most favourite opening theme, the end is great too, but I just love that beginning. Teen Titans is much fun too. All pale in comparison though to the awesomeness of Samurai Champloo, so so so very very good and wonderful!