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Stalling met
Walt Disney
in the early twenties; In 1928, Disney was on a journey from California
to New York City to record the sound and make the preview of
Steamboat Willie,
Disney's first released sound short. During the journey he stopped at
Kansas City to hire Stalling to compose film scores for two other
animated shorts. Stalling composed several early cartoon scores for Disney, including
Plane Crazy and
The Gallopin' Gaucho in 1928 (but not
Steamboat Willie, Disney's first released sound short).
Plane Crazy and
The Gallopin' Gaucho were originally silent films and were the first two
Mickey Mouse animated short films in production. Disney hired Stalling as
his studio's first
music director.
Animation historian
Allan Neuwirth credits Stalling for basically inventing the process of creating a
film score for
cartoons.
According to Strauss, the "wildly talented" Stalling was suitable as a
film score composer for animated films. Stalling even voiced
Mickey Mouse in
The Karnival Kid in 1929.
Stalling
encouraged Disney to create a new series of animated short
films, in which the animation and its action would be created to match
the music. This was still unusual at the time, since film music was
played or composed to match the action of a film. Stalling's discussions
with Disney on whether the animation or the musical score should come
first led to Disney creating the
Silly Symphonies series (
links below) of animated short films. Stalling is credited with both the composition and the musical arrangement of
The Skeleton Dance (1929), the first of the
Silly Symphonies.
A great example of Stallings work is in
The Haunted House (
links below) in which Disney provided the voice of Mickey and
Ub Iwerks was the primary animator.
These cartoons allowed Stalling to create a score that Disney handed to his animators.
The
Silly Symphonies was an innovative animated film series, in
which pre-recorded film scores were making use of well-known classical
works and the animation sequences were choreographed to match the music.
Stalling helped Disney streamline and update the sound process used in
creating early animated sound films, following the long and laborious
synchronization process used in
Steamboat Willie. The close synchronization of music and on-screen movement pioneered by the Disney short films became known as
Mickey Mousing.
Stalling left Disney after two years, at the same time as animator
Ub Iwerks.
Stalling had completed the scoring of about 20 animated films for
Disney. Stalling served as the music director of Iwerks' studio until
the studio shut down in 1936. In 1936, when
Leon Schlesinger, under contract to produce animated shorts for
Warner Bros.,
hired Iwerks, Stalling went with him to become a full-time cartoon
music composer. As music director Stalling became an integral member of
the team producing two very successful animated series. The two animated
series which Schlesinger produced for Warner Bros. were the
Looney Tunes and
Merrie Melodies, both introduced in the early 1930s.
Stalling served as music director for
Warner Bros. for 22 years and
is credited for the film score of over 600 animated films. He remained with them until he retired in 1958.
Carl W. Stalling died in the Los Angeles area on November 29, 1972, nineteen days after his 81st birthday.
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