Darrell Calker music for Lantz & Columbia

[lislebartman]

For those of you fortunate enough to have many Columbia/Screen Gems cartoon titles in their library, I have a music question...

MOst of us know that Darrell Calker was Walter Lantz' music director from 1940/1941 until Lantz was forced to temporarily close his animation studio in the late 1940s. During that time, Calker also scored cartoons for the Columbia/Screen Gems cartoons during its final regime when Ray Katz and Henry Binder were the producers. My question is this:

How could Mr. Calker produce music scores for rival studios? Was he under contract with Lantz/Universal, or was he a freelance arranger and had carte blanche to work where and when he chose? This question just suddenly comes to my head when I see a latter-day Columbia cartoon and hear the distinctive tones of a Darrell Calker score...Imaging how odd it would be if an MGM cartoon had a score by Carl Stalling instead of Scott Bradley, and vice versa...! Imagine a Terrytoon scored by Winston Sharples or a Noveltoon with Phillip Scheib tunes!

Anyone out there have any ideas? Thoughts? Opinions?

[Jack]

My guess is that Calker's contract/agreement with the Walter Lantz studio was not exclusive like the contracts of other composers may have been. Lantz's yearly output in the 40's was quite small compared to most other studios, I think Calker would have had to work at another studio to make ends meet.

Various WB artists moonlighted at rival studios, including Columbia, in the late 40's. I think all three of WB's main writers did it, as did Bob Clampett, they just weren't credited.


Jack :bosko:

[Steve Carras]

For those of you fortunate enough to have many Columbia/Screen Gems cartoon titles in their library, I have a music question...

MOst of us know that Darrell Calker was Walter Lantz' music director from 1940/1941 until Lantz was forced to temporarily close his animation studio in the late 1940s. During that time, Calker also scored cartoons for the Columbia/Screen Gems cartoons during its final regime when Ray Katz and Henry Binder were the producers. My question is this:

How could Mr. Calker produce music scores for rival studios? Was he under contract with Lantz/Universal, or was he a freelance arranger and had carte blanche to work where and when he chose? This question just suddenly comes to my head when I see a latter-day Columbia cartoon and hear the distinctive tones of a Darrell Calker score...Imaging how odd it would be if an MGM cartoon had a score by Carl Stalling instead of Scott Bradley, and vice versa...! Imagine a Terrytoon scored by Winston Sharples or a Noveltoon with Phillip Scheib tunes!

Anyone out there have any ideas? Thoughts? Opinions?

First off, your signature quotes a Sylvester toon..WAIT, wrong TREE FOR TWO (I knew it!!)

Anyhow, myself, J.Lee, Howard Fein, and others have all discusssed PRE_GHYSTERICAL AHRE and other "John Seely Associates scored" WB cartoons...I'm watching GILLIGAN's island, which not only was cartoonist even as a live show, it even had "recylced" music (largely bY Gerald Fried, according to credits), I've wondered if its music (background music,not the many songs it had) would be funny in Warners, or had the WInston Sharples Music been in FLINSTONES or UPA TV cartoons! (Of course WInston Sharples music WAS farmed out over NEw York, though Total TV only had for a few shows and Rankin Bass and TerryToons never used it at all.)