What sound does a coyote make when he takes a bottle of earthquake pills

April 25, 2015 7:54 AM

"Usually the kind of sound effects you heard in the earliest cartoons were strictly sound effects produced by musical instruments. What happened with Treg Brown is entirely different; he would bring in sounds that were recorded in the library at Warner Bros. If someone came quick to a stop, he would bring in a car skid from a Jimmy Carney gangster movie that they had recorded. If somebody was hit on the head and flew out a window there'd be a thunderclap followed by the sound of a biplane in a spin recorded for Dawn Patrol. It was this imposition of realistic sounds into the fantasy world of the cartoons which gave them comic impact."

CRASH! BANG! BOOM! The Wild Sounds of Treg Brown, (Part 1 Part 2 [SLYT]) is a short documentary about legendary sound editor Treg Brown.
posted by Room 641-A (7 comments total)

Thanks for these - I shall watch them later.

The other unsung genius of Looney Tunes' golden age is Michael Maltese, Chuck Jones' writer on many of the most fondly-remembered cartoons he produced - including Ali Baba Bunny, What's Opera Doc?, Duck Amuck, Bully For Bugs, Duck Rabbit Duck and One Froggy Evening. Maktese wrote a load of Pepe LePew and Roadrunner classics too, and yet aside from brief entries on IMDB and Wikipedia, you'll find almost nothing about him on line. He deserves to be MUCH better known.

I discovered this when I noticed his name in the credits of so many of my own favourite WB cartoons. Chuck Jones' name in those opening credits is always a great sign you're about to see one of the good ones, but it's the combination of Jones and Maltese that transforms that promise into a cast-iron guarantee.
posted by Paul Slade at 8:55 AM on April 25, 2015 [10 favorites]

As evil as autoplay music is, this post would totally justify a brrrrr-pew-pew-pew-crunch-kerblammy.
posted by sammyo at 9:01 AM on April 25, 2015

Oh sweet! ThankBOOM plink plunk critch
posted by Namlit at 11:12 AM on April 25, 2015

Very cool. Thanks!
posted by spock at 12:33 PM on April 25, 2015

The Road Runner is made from the sounds of high-speed aircraft. If Wile E. Coyote crashed into something, the impact wasn’t the sound of a cymbal crash or a bass drum hit; it was Treg Brown cutting in a thunderclap and a destroyer alert siren. (From May-June 2009 Editors Guild mag, interview with Ben Burtt.)
posted by Ideefixe at 1:18 PM on April 25, 2015 [1 favorite]

Well, now that he explains it, it's obvious, but the road runner's tongue noise is Treg Brown's thumb popping out of a coke bottle, cut into a quick loop. No wonder I can't imitate it.
posted by Hello Dad, I'm in Jail at 5:03 PM on April 26, 2015 [1 favorite]

Brown + (Carl) Stalling + (Mel) Blanc -- that a heady combo!

Great find, Room 641-A -- thanks.
posted by On the Corner at 3:33 AM on April 28, 2015