More Phil Green Cartoon Music

The Yowp request line has been ringing off the hook, or would be if phones had hooks any more.

Actually, it’s a metaphoric phone. For people have been writing wanting to hear more of the music in the Hanna-Barbera cartoons before Hoyt Curtin wrote underscores starting in the 1960-61 TV season.

Much of the music came from the Capitol Hi-Q Library. I’ve promised a full post on the library and that’ll come in the weeks ahead. But suffice it to say the library was created in 1955 and released for commercial use, from what I can tell, the following year. Hi-Q featured cues written for it as well as some from other libraries, including Capitol’s sister company, EMI. And the music for that library is credited to composer Harry Philip Green.

Phil Green wrote gobs of music for the EMI Photoplay series of 45s. Most were written in what he called “suites,” perfect for films and, especially, television. Green would start with a theme. Then he would arrange one version for a main title and another for end titles. He’d then expand a bit with an underscore version, perhaps some bridges to be used in and out of scenes, and a couple of variations on the theme, say a comic or a dramatic version or a romantic arrangement.

One whole series of discs—EMI Photoplay Q2—was designated ‘Comedy Cartoon.’ These found their way into the Hi-Q library, along with a bunch of his suites in other Photoplay Q series (music companies sure loved the letter ‘Q’ back then). And starting with the Quick Draw McGraw Show, Hanna-Barbera widened the number of cues it had been using to include material written by the very prolific Green.

I’ve posted links to some of them at this post but below you’ll find a bunch more. I’ll avoid boring you with the minutiae of these cues but I’ll mention a couple of things. The “GR” designation was used only by EMI. Capitol renamed Green’s material either “EM,” “PG” or “UP” (what the difference is supposed to be, I don’t know, other than “UP” are replacement cues in updates of the library). Three of the cues in Big City Suite No. 2 (there were six in all, GR-247 to GR-252) were put on Hi-Q reel L-27 with the names EM-130 Metro M.T., EM-130A Metro E.T. and EM-130B Light Activity. All three are below with EMI names, though only GR-248 was used in cartoons. I don’t have EMI names for some of the others, so I’ve had to use the Capitol names.

EM-107D has left me baffled; I had presumed when Rhino released it in 1996 as part of the ‘Augie Doggie underscore’ in its H-B music collection that it was from of one of the Big City Suites. But it doesn’t fit the description of any of the cues in the two Suites in the EMI catalogue.

The longer Green material below was placed in the Hi-Q ‘L’ series, but the bridges were put in the ‘S’ (for ‘short’) series. Hanna-Barbera used them in exactly that manner; they were used to bridge from one scene to the next. Most of these cues in this post are bridges and under 30 seconds.

The volume varies on the cues as they came from different sources. Just click on the cue name and it should download into your media player in glorious mono. My personal favourites are EM-107D, GR-248 and GR-58.

EM-107D LIGHT MOVEMENT
GR-154 PICNIC OR COUNTRY SCENE
GR-155 PARKS AND GARDENS
GR-247 BIG CITY SUITE No 2 TITLES
GR-248 STREETS OF THE CITY
GR-252 BIG CITY SUITE No 2 END TITLES
GR-58 GOING SHOPPING
GR-75 POPCORN SHORT BRIDGE No 1
GR-76 POPCORN SHORT BRIDGE No 2
GR-78 CUSTARD PIE CAPERS BRIDGE No 1
GR-79 CUSTARD PIE CAPERS BRIDGE No 2
GR-81 FRED KARNO'S ARMY BRIDGE No 1
GR-88 SKELETON IN THE CUPBOARD BRIDGE No 1
PG-168J FAST MOVEMENT
PG-171 PERIOD FANFARE
PG-181F MECHANICAL BRIDGE
PG-182D LIGHT MECHANICAL BRIDGE
GR-333 BUSTLING BRIDGE
GR-334 LIGHT AGITATED BRIDGE
GR-347 GATHERING THE PRODUCE
GR-348 EARLY MORNING