The Musical Musings of Michael Maltese

It is only appropriate that cartoon series which began their existence to plug Warner Bros.-owned songs should employ writers who showed abilities as lyricists.

Such was Mike Maltese, scribe of Merrie Melodies and Looney Tunes.

Someone like Greg Ehrbar or Daniel Goldmark will know exactly how this works, if they would care to comment. Maltese’s lyrics (ie. lines sung by characters in the cartoons he wrote) would be published by a Warners’-owned company, which collects royalties for whenever the song is used. Whether the Maltese estate receives any money now, I don’t know, but I suspect it’s treated as a work-for-hire, meaning he was paid a flat fee at the time of composition and that’s it.

Michael A. Maltese is listed in the ASCAP database as having composed the following; some of the titles are duplicates or a little vague:

A Hound For Trouble
At’sa Matter For You
Bugs Bunny Cues
Bugs Bunny Show Cues
Bugs Bunny Thanksgiving Diet
Bugs Bunny Valentine Cues
Bugs Bunny’s Third Movie: 1001 Rabbit Tales
Bugs Bunny’s 3rd Movie 1001 Rabbit Tales
Calypso Bunny
Daffy Cues
Daffy Duck’s Thanks For Giving Cues
Daffy Duck’s Rhapsody (with Warren Foster and Billy May)
Dog Gone South
Eight Ball Bunny Cues
Flower of Gower Gulch
Great American Chase Cues
How Bugs Bunny Won the West
I’m Glad That I’m Bugs Bunny (with Warren Foster and Billy May)
Kids WB Big Cartoonie Show Cues
Lazy Will
Little Beau Pepe Cues
Merrie Melodies Cues
(Michigan Rag, Return My Love)
Merrie Melodies Cues
(Gal From the Wild Prairie with Milt Franklyn)
Merrie Melodies Cues
(At’sa Matter For You, Southern Comfort)
Michigan Rag
One Froggie Evening Cues
Past Perfumance Cues
Porky Pig Cues
Rabbit Hood Cues
Ragtime Jazz (WB Network Promo) (with Hummie Mann)
Regimente
Return My Love
Ride of the Valkyries (with Patrick Cameron Nicholas)
Tannhauser (with Patrick Cameron Nicholas and John Eric Schmidt)
We Had No Place to Go

Two of these, “I’m Glad That I’m Bugs Bunny” and “Daffy Duck’s Rhapsody” are from Capitol records, not Warners cartoons.

Something like “Rabbit Hood Cues” might be confusing but, remember, any time a song is sung that Maltese wrote, he is credited with the lyrics, unless they’re the actual lyrics from a real song. In “Rabbit Hood Cues” case, the sheriff sings a goofy version of “London Bridge is Falling Down.” Maltese gets credit. The same as if he messes with original lyrics, such as when Bugs Bunny sang “Oh carrots are divine, you get a dozen for a dime, it’s magic!” (Rabbit Every Monday, 1951), though, to be honest, I don’t see this in the list. And it’s one of my favourites. (“They fry, a song begins, they roast and I hear violins, it’s magic!” Take that, Doris Day!).

Maltese had a wonderful ear for silly dialogue which he displayed in his cartoons at Warners and Hanna-Barbera.

A Hound For Trouble (released 1951) starred Charlie Dog who, toward the end, put on stereotypical Italian garb and sang the immortal “At’sa Matter For You.” Maltese even supplies a couple of voices in the cartoon.

At’sa matta, at’sa matta, hey!
At’sa matta for you?
You eat-a ma raviola
And ma pastafazoola, too.
I’m-a give-a cacciatori
And a pizza that’s good to chew.
At’sa matta, you no like me? Hey!
At’sa matta for you?

“Calypso Bunny” comes from 8 Ball Bunny (released 1950). It gets interrupted by Dave Barry as Humphrey Bogart from The Treasure of Sierra Madre. You know the cartoon. It’s where Bugs takes a penguin home to Antarctica, but the penguin is really from New Jersey. They stop on a Caribbean Island.

Bugs Bunny came to Martinique.
When he arrived he was pretty weak.
His knees looked like they would buckle in
His tribulations caused by a penguin.

Now he’s built a boat on which they both can leave.
They hope that fickle fate have nothing up her sleeve.
If he should accomplish this daring thing.
A miracle to Martinque Bugs did bring.


Past Perfumance (released 1955) featured Pepe Le Pew on a film set in Paris. He gets out four lines of “We Had No Place to Go” before the scene changes.

We had no place to go
So I took her to a show.
I don’t know what was on the screen
‘Cause I loved her on the mezzanine.

“Regimente” is heard in Little Beau Pepe (released 1952). Unfortunate, it’s a chorus of Mel Blancs in phoney French and the some of the lyrics are indecipherable to my tired old ears.

Le regimente aux ...ente
Of Foreign Legionaire.
L’avec ....aree, for Gai Paris
Oui, oui, le tout le guerre.

We get another little tune from the skunk on a mandolin that sounds like a guitar, music from “Vision of Salome” by Jens B. Lampe with lyrics by Maltese:

Sweet ‘eart, Pepe Le Pew loves you.
Sweet ‘eart, fortunate, lucky you.
Sweet ‘eart, wake up and you will find,
Pepe, he’s got you on his mind.

“Dog Gone South” (from the cartoon of the same name, released 1950) has the Southern colonel strumming his banjo and singing away. Charlie Dog talks over the line about the mint juleps and interrupts the song so we don’t get the full appreciation of Maltese’s songsmithing.

Oh, boll my weevil and corn my pone
You’ll never be lonely because you’re never alone.
When you’re way down South
I said “Way down South.”
....mint juleps
In the warm summer sun where the gals have tulips.
(song interrupted)

I won’t bother with the lyrics from What’s Opera, Doc and One Froggy Evening because I’m sure they’re elsewhere on the internet. But let’s give you “The Flower of Gower Gulch,” heard over the opening credits of Drip Along Daffy (released 1951). Maltese loved Western clichés; he made a whole series starring Quick Draw McGraw out of them at Hanna-Barbera.

She’s the flower of Gower Gulch.
A cowpuncher’s sweetheart true.
And her looks don’t amount to much
Because one of her eyes is blue.
She’s got skin just like prairie dog leather.
She cooks nothing but chuckwagon stew.
And her name is Minerva Ouch.
She’s the flower of Gower Gulch.

Gower Gulch was the corner of Gower and Sunset, originally the home to the Nestor Company in 1911, the first studio built in Hollywood for movie production. Cowboy extras would hang out there waiting for work, hence the name.

Maltese left Warners for Hanna-Barbera in November 1958. Characters in his cartoons there sang, too, such as the rock and roll rocking chair song in El Kabong, Jr. In El Kabong Was Wrong, Maltese penned these punny lyrics:

I’ll never forget the day I fell for Cactus Nell.
Sitting on a thumb tack made me tall in the saddle.
Oh, I won’t be at the roundup, Nelly, because I’m such a square.

There’s no ASCAP or BMI composer credit for Maltese for these cartoons, though. Hanna and Barbera grabbed a lot of song credits. I don’t think Barbera composed anything but he co-owned the company so he’s part of the studio’s music publishers and got a cut.

You could do no better almost any day than watch a bunch of cartoons he wrote and maybe sing along with them. It’s magic!