# Musicians: recording soundtracks for cartoons **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [January 8, 2006, 9:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/musicians-recording-soundtracks-for-cartoons/339048 "2006-01-08T21:46:39Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 4\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![CookingWithGas](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cookingwithgas/32/485_2.png) [@CookingWithGas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CookingWithGas)\ **Post date:** [January 8, 2006, 9:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/musicians-recording-soundtracks-for-cartoons/339048/1 "2006-01-08T21:46:39Z")
Today my kids had Fairly Odd Parents on TV. The episode included a lengthy stretch with no speaking, just action with a music soundtrack, the kind that just provides musical sound effects for the action. It was several minutes. I started wondering what the score for something like that would look like. It was all legit musical instruments but sounded rather random particularly with regard to timing. I couldn’t find “one” or even a beat at all, even a subtle underlying one. Do they record this by taking a score and playing through it, or by recording each individual effect one at a time then editing them all together? The same question could apply to the original Warner Brothers cartoons, which had great soundtracks. ---
**Author:** ![DooWahDiddy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e9bcb4/32.png) [@DooWahDiddy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DooWahDiddy)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2006, 4:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/musicians-recording-soundtracks-for-cartoons/339048/2 "2006-01-09T04:02:44Z")
If I understand what it is you’re asking, the term is “mickey-mousing”… Where the movements and actions of the characters exactly match the music, such as the pizzicato strings for walking (think Tom of _Tom and Jerry_, or maybe the xylophone blink (think Bugs Bunny). As for what the score would look like… well, it would look like any other film score, whether it had a defined beat or not. Maybe it was just a “hit” with a fermata over each piece of action, or maybe there _was_ a beat but you just missed it. In any event, synching that stuff up certainly isn’t as hard as it used be, what with the use of computers and all, but it’s still impressive. Just imagine those old Carl Stalling scores, where they had to line it up with each frame of film! What is it, like 32 frames a second…?!? ---
**Author:** ![WordMan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/e8c25b/32.png) [@WordMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WordMan)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2006, 1:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/musicians-recording-soundtracks-for-cartoons/339048/3 "2006-01-09T13:31:41Z")
I am curious about this, too. I was watching the DVD for **Batman: The Animated Series** with my daughter yesterday and noted how the fully-orchestrated music was excellent. It was essential to completing the great _noir_ feel that that series has, and at moving the story along, or at least complementing the visuals… ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2006, 1:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/musicians-recording-soundtracks-for-cartoons/339048/4 "2006-01-09T13:42:32Z")
My understanding is that the music was recorded _first_, then the animation done to match the score. That way, you can get it perfect. Trying to record music to exactlty match the timing of an already-made cartoon is a botch. As Exhibit A I offer the re-recorded version of Disney’s **Fantasia** , released circa 1986. They got a brand new sound recording and narration. i always assumed it was to cover the glitches caused by excising the offending black centaurs in the “Pastoral Symphony” sectiobn. The new score is painfully out of synch with the film, and I have to assume they were trying very hard to make it match up. They stuck that version back in the vault and, to my knowledge, never re-released it. In Leslie Cabarga’s excellent book **The Fleischer Story** (2nd edition) there’s a picture of the film the orchestras were shown while recording for their films – it’s an animated “metronome” featuring a sort of “bouncing ball” to keep the time.