The Greatest Music Orchestrater of the 20th Century and
The Most Enjoyed Composer of All Time CARL STAL LING

But just who is he?
Back in the 1920's, as Hollywood was starting to coming to terms with"Talking Pictures", Carl Stalling single handedly invented most of the recording studio methods of film composition, which are still industry standard today.
For instance, he invented the "Click Track" which is a built-in feature to every single piece of modern music software.

He was the first to compose and conduct music cues in sync to pictures and sound FX along a time line. Now that may sound double Dutch to you, but when John Williams conducts the music to his latest Blockbuster Movie Soundtrack........ couldn't he find it in his heart to let me have a go at just one Spielberg's flicks or the next Star Wars flop?
Oops sorry, where was I.......
He wrote the music for the first motion picture with a soundtrack: "Steamboat Willy". Not only that, was the original voice of Mickey Mouse. In fact he financed Disney's move to Hollywood from their native Kansas.

That's where they both started, a very long time ago.
Stalling was born in the last year of the 19th century and was a child protégé, playing piano and organ in silent movie houses all across Kansas and the outer states.
Disney's past is well documented and this is about Stalling.

So let's take it from after leaving Disney in the early 30's, he helped establish the ground breaking animation company named after its founder: "Ub Iwerks".
Amazingly Ub was another Kansas refugee (there must have been something in the water in Kansas in them days), who's empire is now the current market leader in Hollywood special FX; along with Industrial Light + Magic.

That means just about every Bugs Bunny, Road Runner, Daffy Duck, Speedy Gonzalez and Tweetie Pie cartoon you've ever seen had music composed by him.
During Stalling's time at Warner's he wrote nearly two thousand mini symphonies, lasting on average 6 minutes. The musical themes embodied within the cartoon characters that developed over decades stand alongside the work of any of the recognised masters.
He liberally borrowed, rearranged and pastiched other composers from classical greats to fellow Warner's staff composers. When he played the likes of Strauss or Wagner, it is enjoyed by all.

During his twenty two years at Warner's, Stalling sat in an office for 4 days a week writing scores and working with Orchestrater Milt Franklyn, Sound FX pioneer Treg Brown and the vocal wizard Mel Blanc.
Once a week he had a short session with the Warner Brothers Orchestra, who just happened to be the Los Angeles Philharmonic doing a bit of moonlighting.

He may not have the academic profile of Shostakovich, Stravinsky and Prokofiev, or the P.R. of Stockhausen, Cage and Nyman, but he has, without any doubt, made more people happy.
Throughout his working life the main form of mass entertainment was the cinema. The Warner Brothers cartoons were the longest running and most popular series of films ever made. The films, with Stalling's soundtrack were distributed across the world and dubbed into all languages spoken.

Not long after his retirement in 1958, his music was heard by every child, parent and grandparent again, when all cartoons were endlessly rerun on television. To this day they are broadcast continually in every country on the planet.
Stalling's music has made everybody who's ever been near a TV set happy for most of their lives. The hardest thing to compose is a piece of music that will make people laugh. The fact that so many people have listened with joy to his music for so much of their lives is an unmatchable achievement.
There's an American arranger/conductor: George Daughty, who conducts a programme called "Bugs Bunny On Broadway"; which features Stalling's music played by a full Orchestra whilst the cartoons are projected on a large cinema screen, if you ever get the chance go and see it.

Carl Stalling was a quiet, modest man whose mastery of orchestral music is quite simply untouchable in the 20th century. Next time a Merrie Melodies or Looney Tunes cartoon comes on the box, close your eyes and listen to the finest musicians playing incredibly difficult music, with pinpoint accuracy to hilarious effect.

It's an absolute scandal that his name isn't mentioned in any music reference book. Maybe toffee-nosed academics have never watched cartoons on telly. But make no mistake, Carl Stalling is sitting in heaven now with the likes of JS Bach, Beethoven and Mozart on the top table of music makers.

th th th th th That's All Folks!