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Often without realizing it, we go through life creating emotional associations through our most influential senses. A certain taste reminds us of a place or an event. A particular scent brings distant memories of a beloved person. And for many of us that grew up basking in animation, there are instant associations that arise when specific music plays.

When you hear Dukas' Sorcerer's Apprentice, one can't help but conjure thoughts of a mischievous mouse and an army of broomsticks. Rossini's Barber of Seville and Wagner's Ride of the Valkyries bring immediate, humorous visions of a rascally rabbit and his inept adversary. It was only natural that my creative efforts in animation would involve music.

My animation partner, Roberts Gannaway, and I both grew up in musically-inclined families. My parents are high school band directors, and I play the French horn. Bobs spent his youth as an upstanding member of the Tulsa Boys Singers.

A Forgotten Past
During our first season as producers of The Lion King's Timon & Pumbaa, we decided to create an all-musical cartoon short called "Beethoven's Whiff." It wasn't a popular decision. People looked upon the concept as a big experiment, something that might not play well before today's audience. In the end, we proved just the opposite -- that music can carry a story for eight minutes maybe even 11 minutes.

We didn't originate the concept - Walt Disney pioneered the technique back in the 1930s, with an award-winning, albeit experimental series called the "Silly Symphonies" (which included the Academy Award-winning animated shorts, Flowers and Trees of 1932, The Three Little Pigs in 1933, and the double Oscar-winning The Old Mill in 1937). Other studios followed suite with musical catchphrases like "Harman-Ising" (Hugh Harman and Rudolph Ising at MGM), and Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies at Warner Bros. Carl Stalling, who helped Walt Disney create the score for Steamboat Willie, moved on to Warner Bros. and has become revered for his work there.

Tony and Bobs' fascination with musical cartoons started with the Timon and Pumbaa TV series. © Disney. All rights reserved.

Unfortunately, the majority of those pioneering animators were no longer around to pass on their tricks of the trade. So we invented our own method. We do know that the old-time animators used a bar sheet that had all the music on it, so they'd know the tempo and the number of frames per beat. We utilized a similar system in making not only "Beethoven's Whiff," but in creating our own all-musical shorts, including a new series of "Silly Symphonies," for the new Disney's Mickey MouseWorks cartoons.

Our Re-Invented Method
Everything begins with a storyline, which is broken down into segments of approximately 90 seconds. Next comes the selection of classical music from within public domain, and then we assemble a rough edit track simply by transferring these pieces of music from our CDs onto an audio cassette.

Actually, Mr. Rogers deserves a little of the credit for the next step in our system. Bobs was watching one morning (don't ask!) when Mr. Rogers discussed a fun project that involved kids taking a crayon and a piece of paper and, when the music played, drawing whatever the music made them feel. That's basically what we do - we follow the music. We just pin up a 10-foot piece of paper, put a pencil at one end, and let the music tell the story. As the music rises, we move the pencil up, and when it lulls we move the pencil down. If it zigs and zags, that's the way the pencil goes. The result is a veritable map of the musical piece. We already have a rough script, so all we have to do is name the hills and valleys.

We then discuss the story with our composer, Stephen James Taylor, who adds his suggestions and then creates a temporary synch track on his computer. The synch track includes a click beat that identifies changes in tempo.

The click track is transferred onto an exposure sheet, and that is matched up with the storyboard. Sometimes you have to add or cut a few gags depending upon length, but usually it's pretty close because the storyboarders work from the same temp track that we initially created.