ANIMATION SPIN
March 4, 2014 posted by Greg Ehrbar

Mr. Peabody on Record

Last time you remember, our heroes Rocky and Bullwinkle were cutting an original cast record! But little did they know that their composer had also made a record, and that half a century in the future, a Mr. Peabody and Sherman movie soundtrack album would be released as well!

RockyBullwinkleLP-600

ROCKY AND HIS FRIENDS
TV’s Original Cast Album
Golden Records LP-67 (12” 33 rpm / Mono / 1961)
Little Golden Records 659 (Two Songs: 7”45 rpm / 6” 68 rpm / Mono /1961)
Partial Reissue: Wonderland-Golden Records LP- 285 (12” 33 rpm / Mono / 1972)

Producers: Jay Ward Productions, Arthur Shimkin, Hudson Productions. Writer: Paul Parnes. Arranger/Conductor: Dennis Farnon. Running Time: 34 minutes.

Voices: June Foray (Rocky, Natasha, Red Riding Hood, Grandma); Bill Scott (Bullwinkle, Mr. Peabody, Police Officer; Livingstone, Gidney); Paul Frees (Boris, Police Officer, Ponce DeLeon, Stanley, Cannibal); Walter Tetley (Sherman).

Songs: “I Was Born to Be Airborne,” “I’m Rocky’s Pal,” “Peabody Here!” “The No-Goodnik’s Song,” “I Wanna Go Back,” “Peabody’s History,” “Moon Man Mambo,” “You Gotta Have a Crook,” “Fractured Fairy Tales.”

Soundtrack Segments: “Bullwinkle’s Corner: Tom Tom The Piper’s Son;” “Bullwinkle’s Corner: Peter Piper;” “Peabody’s Improbable History”: Ponce DeLeon;” “Peabody’s Improbable History”: Stanley and Livingstone;” “Fractured Fairy Tale: Ridinghoods Anonymous.”

This is one Golden Record that sets the gold standard. June Foray, Bill Scott, Paul Frees, Walter Tetley, five cartoon soundtracks, a witty script worthy of Ward and bouncy original songs arranged and conducted by one the show’s musical staff that has the same tone as the series music—and a brisk pace that matches the cartoon style! What more could a Jay Ward fan want?

Rocky_and_His_Friends_45_225If one were to quibble, none of the themes or music cues from the actual Ward library are included. Quibble noted. But it’s not a stretch to assume that, for a Golden Record, this had to be relatively expensive. It was recorded in LA, used the actual voice actors, a small orchestra, etc. Add in travel and expenses and you get an album that had to cost much, much more than Songs and Games of Fitness with Posture Pete, which consisted of one narrator and a tiny circus calliope.

New York songwriter Paul Parnes, whose music credits span over four decades and TV jingles include “Snap, Crackle, Pop,” is credited as writer, though the reflexive fourth-wall humor (“And now, ten seconds of needle scratch…”) suggests that Scott and Ward did some tweaking. Parnes wrote songs and background music for a lot of early ‘60s Golden Records (included the highly recommended Hans Christian Andersen’s Fairy Tales Narrated by Danny Kaye, which is on CD).

GIVE A LITTLE LISTEN
Peabody Medley
Peabody and Sherman have the lion’s share of the Rocky and His Friends album, with three songs (heard here) and two stories. Paul Parnes songs for the Rocky album are catchy and cute, sounding very much like some of the tunes on Golden’s “studio cast” album, Songs of Yogi Bear. (If you’ve heard “Cutie of the Cave Set,” it’s akin to Sherman’s “I Wanna Go Back.”)


FarnonLP-550

THE ENCHANTED WOODS
The Dennis Farnon Orchestra
RCA Victor Records LPM-1897 (12” 33 rpm / Mono / 1959)

Producer: Dick Peirce. Recorded in Hollywood, May 9 and 22, 1958. Running Time: 44 minutes.
Songs: “Among My Souvenirs” by Horatio Nicholls and Edgar Leslie; “Moonlove” by Andre Kostalanetz, Mack Davis and Mack David; “Cecelia” by Harry Ruby and Dave Dreyer; Right As The Rain” by Harold Arlen and E.Y. Harburg; “Fools Rush In” by Johnny Mercer and Rube Bloom; The Lady is a Tramp” by Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart; “You Are Too Beautiful” by Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart; “Snowfall” by Claude Thornhill; “Winter Wonderland” by Felix Bernard and Richard Smith; “If You Had But a Dream” by Nat Bonx, Moe Jaffe and Jack Fulton; “I Hear a Rhapsody” by George Fragos, Jack Baker and Dick Gasparre; “Day by Day” by Sammy Cahn, Axel Stordahl and Paul Weston.

farnon_1-250On the surface, this looks like a typical easy listening instrumental album of the Eisenhower/Kennedy era. I found it at a thrift store, where hundreds await being purchased, like Corduroy the Bear waiting for someone to love him.

This one is special, though. Not just because it’s weird. So were a lot of lounge and exotica recording artists of the era. Martin Denny’s records still creep me out, with all those squawking birds and screaming monkeys he played piano with. (Sorry Marty, that only works in the Tiki Room.)

This album is significant because of its orchestra leader, Canadian-born Dennis Farnon, who did the music for Mister Magoo and other UPA cartoons (and the strange Magoo in Hi-Fi album) and for many of the quirky, discordant musical stabs and themes for Jay Ward cartoons (along with others like Fred Steiner, who also composed for Star Trek). This album was created shortly before his work for Jay Ward.

Farnon is also linked to cartoons indirectly, two of his nieces being Shannon Farnon (voice of Wonder Woman on Superfriends) and Darleen Carr (“That Girl” in The Jungle Book). His other niece is Charmian Carr, who played Liesl in 1965’s The Sound of Music. His older brother Robert was also a renowned musical director and composer.

The Enchanted Woods is also notable for Farnon’s decision to use only woodwinds to showcase their versatility. While you’ll hear percussion and rhythmic touches, it’s all about the enchanted woodwinds, folks.

Several of Farnon’s other works found their way into movies and TV shows, including Ren and Stimpy. He also created library music for the BBC that was used for countless shows, including Doctor Who. A cool, quirky resumé indeed!

GIVE A LITTLE LISTEN
“Winter Wonderland”
While most of The Enchanted Woods sounds like the music you hear when Samantha and either of the Darrins dine at an elegant restaurant, a few are deliciously Bullwinkley. Listen for the familiar discordant keys and other antics in this version of the seasonal that make this one of the strangest renditions on vinyl.


Peabody_Sherman_Movie_Soundtrack

MR. PEABODY AND SHERMAN
Original Motion Picture Soundtrack
Relativity Music Group (CD and download)

Album Released on March 3, 2014. Composer: Danny Elfman. Conductor: Rick Wentworth. Orchestrations: Steve Bartek, Edward Trybeck, John Ashton Thomas. Running Time: 51 minutes.

Instrumentals: “Mr. Peabody’s Prologue,” “Reign of Terror!” “The Drop Off,” “The Dog Whistle,” “The Cherry Tree,” “A Deep Regard,” “Dinner Party,” “The Petersons/The Wabac Machine,” “Aquarela Do Brasil,” “Off To Egypt,” ‘The Wedding Exodus,” “Hammer-Time,” “The Flying Machine,” “Trojan Horse,” “War/Disaster,” “History Mash-Up,” “I’m a Dog Too,” “Fixing the Rip,” “Back To School,” “Aquarela Do Brasil (Coda).”
Pop Songs: “Way Back When” by Grizfolk; “Beautiful Boy (Darling Boy)” (2010 Remix) by John Lennon.
Excerpt: “The Amazing Mr. Peabody” featuring Stephen Colbert.

Danny Elfman has come a long way from Oingo Boingo, as one of Hollywood’s top composers, with peers like John Williams and Thomas Newman, and predecessors like Miklos Rozka and Alfred Newman.

Elfman been the subject of a gentle ribbing for his “typical” Tim Burton score (“La-la-la-la Too-Doo-Doo-Doo Deedle-Deedle!”), but it’s actually been a long time since Beetlejuice and, although one might expect Elfman to set his WABAC machine to the ‘90s to dial in the strange for Mr. Peabody and Sherman, for the most part this is a symphonic, largely exhilarating score that avoids the most obvious choices of so many recent comedy/adventure scores.

What I like about the album is the way the musicians were positioned to make maximum use of the stereophonic separation. With all the digital technology available today, there’s still nothing like listening to those “ping-pong,” “ultra high-fidelity,” “visual sound,” “living dimension,” (Big arrow pointing left!)—STEREO—(Big arrow pointing right!) vinyl discs that so delighted the dinner guests of millions of real-life Rob and Laura Petries back in the days when hi-fi consoles were as big as Buicks. Listen to this Peabody soundtrack on headphones and you’ll hear a wealth of call-and-response arrangements, with one instrument on the left playing, followed immediately with another on the right. Of course, Mr. Peabody either invented stereo or made it possible for the person who did invent it.

This effect, which is surprisingly uncommon on contemporary soundtrack albums, cannot be simply an element of the movie that just happens to be on the album, because such a subtle effect is not as noticeable when watching the movie with dialogue and sound effects in a theatre or a home system. While I’m sure it creates a more subconscious effect for the film, I like to think it was a little treat for those of us with headphones.

There are two pop songs included on the album. One is John Lennon’s classic, “Beautiful Boy,” which gave us the line “Life is what happens to you while you’re busy making other plans.” The other is “Way Back When” by Grizfolk, whose music is described on their agency site as “where folklore meets four-on-the-floor; where tumbleweeds meet turntables.”

GIVE A LITTLE LISTEN
“The Amazing Mr. Peabody”
This is the goofiest track on the album, with Stephen Colbert as Paul Peterson (a little nod to The Donna Reed Show?). I love the score, but it sure would be nice to also have dialogue sequences. I miss the days when all the animation studios produced dialogue story albums and even the shorter read-alongs that only Disney seems to do anymore. Then I’d buy both versions.

16 Comments

  • Greg:That was a very interesting cut.I didn’t know they had made a Rocky and Bulllwinkle original cast album.It would be neat if we could hear the whole thing.Also,for some reason,I haven’t been able to play any of the second cuts in any of the entries.The first cuts play alright.

    • Andy, the sound of all three clips play fine on my MacBook Pro laptop and my iPhone. I guessing the problem is with your browser or computer. Are you saying this happens every week on Greg’s posts? Very Odd.

      Anyone else having this trouble?

    • I can only play the clips once.

    • I’m not having any problems myself. It may be his computer or browser.

    • I can’t play any of the cuts – do I have to sign up to sound-cloud? (I don’t want to)

  • I still have my ROCKY & HIS FRIENDS LP album. I’ve only heard it about a zillion times. To quote Bullwinkle J. Moose: “You can’t beat the classics!”

  • Sherman’s WABAC Machine song is very reminiscent of Farnon’s theme for Fractured Flickers. Just listen to that wavering alto (?) sax at the start.

    • I’ve loved that wavering alto for years. One of my favorite things about the record.

  • If memory serves, the Jay Ward cartoons were big on theme songs and musical bumpers, but almost totally devoid of background music in the shorts themselves (with the exception of Dudley Doright and its lively piano accompaniment).

    Only exceptions that come to mind are “real” music (we see a band playing, etc.) and maybe two instances of chase music.

    “Fractured Flickers” had a collection of stock themes, little if any of which was heard elsewhere.

    For some reason I’m always intrigued by off-model (but otherwise professional) renderings of cartoons characters. Boris and Natasha look especially oddball.

  • This just in from England:
    Brian Sibley reminds us that Jay Ward Productions’ TV series are celebrated in Darrell Van Citters’ new book: http://www.artofjayward.com/

  • “I love the score, but it sure would be nice to also have dialogue sequences. I miss the days when all the animation studios produced dialogue story albums and even the shorter read-alongs that only Disney seems to do anymore. Then I’d buy both versions.”

    Lord knows I would love those myself. Not to say today’s audience can’t accept simply having an album with nothing but music, but it would be nice to have had something extra besides music.

  • I’m a little surprised that the go-to analyst of Little Golden Records is creeped out by Martin Denny music. True, Quiet Village doesn’t quite have the production values of the Rocky and His Friends Original Cast album, but it does have its charms.

    • I actually really enjoy the version of “Quiet Village” (Denny’s biggest hit) by Herman Clebanoff. Nice cha-cha.

  • Paul Peterson (Stephen Colbert) as a nod to the Donna Reed show? Well, with Patty Peterson (Leslie Mann) I’d say yes. Is there a character named Shelley Fabares in the cast?:)(I saw the Peterson name on the Internet Movie Database entry for this movie.

  • Oh..background music from Capitol Mujsic does exist on some Ward producitons…one of Peabody’s, “Robin Hood”, used on used on Gumby, Huckleberry Hound, Yogi, and Pixie/Dixie, “ZR-47 LIGHT MOVEMENT” (G.Hormel), with strings as our heroes go through the Wabac machine. And most memorably Fractured Fairy Tales, did too. Two “Cinderellas” had some, “Prince Darling” had some, probably original Dennis Farnon musc, and the Ugly Duckling is just entirely occupied, largely with the Capitol mock tearjerker (you’ll recognize it, a 16 bar ABAC form trombone piece,, used by Hanna-Barbera a lot of times.)

    Aesop had some background music, most I believe by Dudley composer Dennis Farnon (who also did music for the pilot Hoppity, the one with Alan Reed as Fillmore and made in 1960).
    (BTW A lot, or if not all, of those “background music” Ward cartoons, at least the ones besides Dudley Do-Right, the ones not always with music, were done in house in Hollywood by Ward, and not farmed out..)

  • Hmmm, I also had problems playing most of these bits of audio, but I did manage to play what counts, the original ROCKY AND HIS FRIENDS material, the MR. PEABODY song and “I Wanna Go Back” which, yes, I recognized as also being included, partially, throughout “FRACTURED FLICKERS”. No one does it like Ward and Scott and Foray and Frees!! I only wish that someone knew the grand possibilities of piecing together a massive box set of animation-related scores from all decades of the stuff, similar to the 50 GREATEST CARTOON THEMES single disk and the PICK-A-NICK BASKET FULL OF CARTOON FAVORITES box set! Those, among others, set the standard so wonderfully high!

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