Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/1541592
M OT I O N P I CTU R E S O U N D E D I TO R S 37 of a realistic crash, one might hear a high-pitched zing or a rubbery squish. He treated every cartoon gag as a sonic turn—a twist, an accent, an unexpected coda. His editorial instincts were impeccable. The placement of a hiss, a whoosh, or a snap—often just a few frames—could turn a gag from amusing to hysterical. Over decades, his work established a "sound language" that was distinctly Warner Bros. Each effect carried weight—literally and comically— because it was consistent, reactive, and sharply cut. "The Star Wars sound effects were, to a large part, my attempts at doing what I thought Treg would do. He was a great inspiration: everything highly magnified, organic, and rendered with full-color impact." –BEN BURTT Sound Designer (Star Wars, Indiana Jones) Despite his central role, Brown remained mostly anonymous to the general audience. His name didn't appear in Warner cartoon credits until the 1950s. It's said that studio bosses were hesitant to give him an official "Sound Effects" credit because they considered the title undignified—leading to the more ambiguous "Film Editor" designation. In sly homage, Warner animators occasionally buried his name onscreen. In One Froggy Evening (1955), the skyscraper that imprisons Michigan J. Frog is labeled the "Tregoweth Brown Building." In Fish and Slips (1962), he appears as a TV character catching a record fish. Brown's work extended beyond cartoons. He became active in the Editors Guild, serving as a director starting in 1959. He also maintained a licensed chiropractic practice in Los Angeles. And in a delightfully incongruous twist, he was a square dance caller—on television, no less—and even wrote dance call lyrics. One of the clearest showcases of Brown's genius came in Now Hear This (1963), the Oscar-nominated Chuck Jones short built almost entirely around sound. The film's surreal story—a befuddled Englishman tormented by a devil's discarded horn—relies less on dialogue than on Brown's astonishing palette of sonic juxtapositions. Everyday noises—church bells, car horns, military bugles, and wildly distorted effects— collide and overlap in a way that's both musical and absurd. Brown treats sound as a protagonist itself, creating comedy and unease through the contrast of what you see and what you hear. It's a masterclass in timing and incongruity, and a fitting capstone to his Warner Bros. career—proof that his effects could carry a cartoon as powerfully as drawings or dialogue. After Warner Bros. shuttered its cartoon unit in 1963, Brown carried on for a few years with DePatie-Freleng's animation department. His crowning late-career accolade came in 1966, when he was awarded the Academy Award for Best Sound Effects for Blake Edwards's The Great Race (1965). Treg Brown passed away on April 28, 1984, in Irvine, CA. The Warner Bros. sound effects library lived exclusively at the studio for many years. Occasionally, a few sounds turned up in the Hanna-Barbera library—and vice versa—likely from editors borrowing material between jobs. But for the most part, these classic effects remained exclusive to Warner Bros. That changed when David Yewdall was given permission to use many of Brown's sounds in Joe Dante's segment of Twilight Zone: The Movie (1983). Later, Mark Mangini included several of Treg's classic effects in Dante's films Gremlins (1984) and Looney Tunes: Back in Action (2003)— one in which I had the privilege of working with these sounds myself as an effects editor. A large portion of the library was eventually released on CD by Sound Ideas, supplemented by new work created by sound designer Russell Brower—a devoted Treg Brown disciple. As the medium and technology for adding sound to film continue to evolve, Brown's methods—the physical splices, tape loops, and improvisations—have become ancestral lore. Yet his creativity remains timeless. Many credit Brown for changing how we listen to cartoons. His work taught generations of filmmakers and sound designers that sound isn't merely support—it's part of the joke, part of the story, part of the character. He didn't add sound in a "paint-by-numbers" way; he worked closely with animators, composers (especially Carl Stalling), and other editors to collaborate on each film brilliantly … a process that needs to be practiced more often today. As an educator of the craft of entertainment audio, I embrace Treg Brown's methodology and share it with as many young soundie minds as possible, encouraging them to study his work—to understand how to use sound creatively, and to make irreverent choices, especially in animation. And always, to listen to the real world— because even realistic, natural sounds, when used out of context, can make a moment delightfully absurd. Thanks for that, Treg. To learn more sound history, support The Hollywood Sound Museum. Visit HollywoodSoundMuseum.org to learn more.