Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/1541592
34 M PS E . O R G his past summer, I wrote about Jimmy Macdonald, the sound effects genius at Disney for many years. He had a percussionist's approach to creating sounds, manufacturing custom props, and instruments to "perform" each sonic event. Over at Warner Bros., the sonic philosophy was different. Their sound genius was Treg Brown, who leaned more toward sounds from the real world—juxtaposed into cartoon madness. He embraced the surreal, the eccentric. His signature was unmistakable: sly, exaggerated, and unafraid to be funny in the wrong moment. From the vocal "boinks" and "bee-ooo-whoops!" of Bugs and Daffy's acrobatics to the zooms and crashes that punctuate Road Runner and Coyote's catastrophes, Brown shaped the sonic vocabulary of cartoon comedy. Over his decades at Warners, he quietly became as essential to Looney Tunes as the animators themselves. "Long before there were sound designers, commercially available sound libraries, or even Dolby, there was Treg Brown. Using sonic metaphor and simile as grounding principles, Road Runners took off like mortars, and Tasmanian Devils spun like airplane motors." –MARK MANGINI Sound Designer (Dune, Mad Max: Fury Road) Born November 4, 1899, near Gilbert, Minnesota, Tregoweth Edmond "Treg" Brown was the eldest of four, with a French-Canadian mother and a father employed in the local iron mines. In his youth, he gravitated toward performance. By 1919, he was performing in musical clubs and minstrel acts. In the 1920s, he worked as a musician—singing and playing banjo, violin, and accordion—first with other bands, then later fronting his own combo. For a time, his band was called Treg Brown and His Georgia Crackers (even though he was from Minnesota!). He also played with legendary band leader Red Nichols. By the early 1930s, he had made his way to Los Angeles, doing film editing and post-production work—cutting both picture and sound. He first worked at Paramount as a music F ROM TH E VAU LT O F TH E H O L LY WOO D SOU N D M U S E U M The Sonic Genius Behind the Looney Tunes T BY STEVE LEE, THSM Founder TREG BROWN