Pounding a Piano

The other day, we mentioned both Woody Woodpecker and Liszt’s Second Hungarian Rhapsody. The two got together in the 1954 cartoon Convict Concerto, written for Walter Lantz (presumably on a freelance basis) by Hugh Harman.

The music gave the cartoon a structure and was treated seriously; there’s no interposing of “The Atcheson, Topeka and the Santa Fe” like in the Oscar-winning Tom and Jerry cartoon The Cat Concerto (1947). Harman was a pioneer of sound animation and was certainly capable of combining musical beats with the action on the screen.

There’s squash and stretch where Woody jumps from off-camera to his piano, and the Maxie Rosenbloom-sounding police officer (played by Daws Butler) partially snaps out of his stupor.



There’s no director credit on the cartoon. It’s presumed Don Patterson was responsible, though Harman likely had a large hand in this if he was timing music to the gags. This was Patterson’s last directing job. Walter Lantz had hired Tex Avery. To make room for him, Patterson was demoted and animated in Avery’s unit.

Ray Abrams and Herman Cohen animated along with Patterson, and Raymond Turner was given screen credit as the pianist.