'Toons That Play Tunes: Animated Characters Who Play Instrument
What does a squid, a chipmunk and a smart second-grader have in common?
They are all animated cartoon characters. And they all play – to varying degrees of proficiency – a musical instrument.
Cartoons and music naturally go together, like Tom and Jerry, like Ren and Stimpy, Beevis and Butthead. You get the idea. Theme songs often hint at the hijinks and mayhem bound to ensue. In the film Who Framed Roger Rabbit, the frenetic Maroon Cartoon tracks provide a comic and sometime melodramatic backdrop for the action.
The story revolves around a manic animated rabbit, and a flesh and blood human, a Private Eye named Eddie Valiant, who holds a grudge against ‘toons because his brother Teddy met an untimely demise when a rogue ‘toon dropped a piano on him. Guess you could say the piano played Eddie. But I digress.
Peppa the Pig and her nearest and dearest. The family that plays together, stays together.
TV’s Family Guy often finds it’s musical mojo. On one notable occasion Little Stewie Griffin, the family toddler sits in with the Cowtones, whose members play the jug, washboard and washtub bass. Stewie himself provides banjo licks and vocals on ‘My Fat Baby.’
Stewie’s dad, Peter spends more time tuning his guitar than playing famously telling a live audience, “This was in perfect tune when they handed it to me.”
For groovy seventies pop, look no further than Josie and the Pussycats. Besides the music, the animation featured leopard print leotards, replete with ‘long tails and ears for hats’ as their theme song reveals.Josie, the lead singer, songwriter and guitarist is joined by brainy bassist Valerie, and stereotypically blonde airhead, and drummer, Melody. Their cool girl power vibe helped sell the concept Josie and Company could turn the tables on the bad guys who invariably chased them around in each episode.
Peanuts’ Schroeder was a played a mean toy piano. One of Charlie Brown’s posse, Schroeder displayed his prodigious skills and made no secret of his love of classical music, and for the composer Ludwig van Beethoven. Once in a while, Snoopy picked up a bass, and jammed with Charlie on guitar, and Pig Pen on drums. The crowd went wild and took to the dance floor.
And that’s what music is about. Joy, movement, connection.
Cartoons provide much-needed relief from the mind-numbing loop of reality TV and cable news. Who doesn’t love to curl up on the sofa in their jammies on a wintry Saturday morning to enter a world where we can laugh at and appreciate our own human foibles and emotions safely played out by animated characters? Cartoon characters get away with things for which we rarely could. Good guys get rewarded. Villains are yet foiled again. Equilibrium is restored, temporarily and artificially, to the world.
Lisa Simpson, a second-grader since 1989, can still be found – “If anyone wants me, I’ll be in my room.” - playing one of her three saxophones. Although aspires to be a famous jazz musician when she grows up, chances are, she may not get her wish, as she inherited her dad Homer’s stubbing fingers. Still, a girl can dream.
Practice makes perfect for this future famous jazz saxophonist on The Simpsons.
If Squidward Tentacles never gets to Symphony Hall, it’s not for trying. Despite frequent practice, he’ll never be a clarinet virtuoso. Playing underwater may have something to do with that, as well as his natural lack of fingers. Makes it hard to cover the holes with the pads of your fingers.
Despite the constant chiding to sing with his brothers, Alvin the Chipmunk would prefer to play his cherished harmonica. The harp was a Christmas gift he received ‘From me, to me.’
And that’s what music is. A gift we give ourselves, and others. As this holiday season gets underway, it’s good to remember the best things we can give are the things we create ourselves. It’s the sheet music you learned to read this year. The note you thought you’d never be able to hit, but one day, it ‘just’ happened. It’s the piece of music you want to hear over and over because of how it makes you feel.
Adding joy, fun, dancing and music to these fictional characters lives is absolutely essential to their existence, and hits all the right notes.
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