Treg Trivia

It’s hard to believe a man instrumental in the sound of Warner Bros. cartoons never got screen credit until 1956.

Of course, we’re talking about Treg Brown.

Tregoweth Edmond Brown was the film editor at the studio, cutting the music, dialogue and sound effects into the film, as well as creating the effects. Cartoon fans likely know a few things about him—he won an Oscar for the sound effects in Warner Bros.’ feature film The Great Race (1965). Before getting into cartoons he played with Red Nichols and his Five Pennies. And he was a licensed chiropractor.

Oh, and Mel Blanc credits Brown with hiring him in 1936 to voice cartoons. But it took another 20 years before Brown’s name appeared on screen, in Too Hop to Handle, released on January 28, 1956 (information courtesy of Jerry Beck).

Out of curiosity, I decided to hunt around and see what else I could find about Brown. You can read what he told the Exposure Sheet internal newsletter in its edition of September 15, 1939 below right (again, courtesy of Jerry Beck), but we have some odds and ends from various other sources.

Treg was born on November 4, 1899 near Gilbert, Minnesota, the oldest of four children; his father worked in the nearby iron mine, and later was an engineer at a school. His mother was French-Canadian. Brown’s World War One Draft Card from September 1918 gives his occupation as a timekeeper for a Mr. Pilling in Fayal, working for an iron company.

He showed some musical talent as a teenager. The Duluth Herald reported in 1919 that he was member of the chorus of the Oliver club in Eveleth, not far from Gilbert. The club put on minstrel shows.

Brown was off on a musical career. In 1922, the Virginia, Minnesota City Directory gives his occupation as “musician.” He started getting write-ups in Billboard. In 1927, Al Katz and His Kittens landed a winter gig at the Adolphus Hotel in Dallas. With Katz, he sang and played banjo, violin and accordion. The band had a nightly show on KRLD. He spent five years with Katz, then left to form his own combo in July 1929. His first gig was at the Far East Restaurant in Cleveland, moving in October to the city’s Club Madrid (and heard on WHK, Cleveland), and in November to a new supper club in Youngstown. That year, he wrote the lyrics to I’ll Always Miss You (music by J.M. Bishop). It’s a shame Carl Stalling never used it at Warners. At the time he belonged to Local 362, Huntington, West Virginia, travelling from Local 10 in Chicago of the American Federation of Musicians. (Being in Chicago, he likely would have known union boss James C. Petrillo). The following year, he held travelling membership in Local 101 in Dayton.

In 1930, his band was called Treg Brown and His Georgia Crackers (even though he was from Minnesota) and engaged for a time at the Hotel Paramount in New York City.

The Chicago local lost a member in mid-1932 when Brown transferred out. At that point, he was based in Los Angeles as a member of Buddy Fisher’s Orchestra (according to an ad in Hollywood Filmograph magazine).

When did he arrive at the Leon Schlesinger studio? Michael Barrier interviewed him in January 1979, and was told Brown (Treg) replaced Brown (Bernard B.) a few months before hiring Blanc (Blanc’s version of events in the mid-‘40s became far more embellished years later on the interview circuit). He appears as chief sound engineer for Schlesinger in the 1937 Year Book of Motion Pictures. To quote from Barrier’s Hollywood Cartoons:

[H]e found work editing live-action features at Paramount. He came to Warner Bros, as a film editor, cutting both features and cartoons: "[Bernard] Brown and [musical director Norman] Spencer would do the sound effects and the music, and I would just cut them in." Eventually, when Bernard Brown left to become head of the sound department at Universal, Treg Brown assumed his responsibilities, "the sound and the editing and that sort of thing." Providing all the sound effects for the Warner cartoons was soon a far more important aspect of his job than it had been for his predecessors. By the time Brown joined the Schlesinger staff, a sound editor could accumulate a large library of sound effects that had been recorded on film— some of them picked up from the soundtracks of features— and add them to each cartoon as needed. An editor still had to invent new effects, but he had abundant resources at his command. Brown's skill in using such resources showed up quickly in sound effects that were both far more numerous and more pointed than before, attributes increasingly valuable as aggressively comic cartoons became more important in the Schlesinger scheme of things and musical cartoons like Freleng's Merrie Melodies less so.

There was an occasional mention in the press, if there wasn’t on screen. Erskine Johnson’s column of August 14, 1943 remarked:

When you see a new Leon Schlesinger cartoon, “Corny Concerto,” you’ll probably marvel at the sound of bubbles bursting to the melody of “The Blue Danube.” Treg Brown, the sound man who created the novelty, nearly knocked himself doing it. He created the bubble bursting sounds by making a sound box of his mouth and rapping himself on the head.

To the right you see an unfortunately murky photo the December 12, 1948 edition of Parade, a weekend newspaper magazine supplement, from a story on art directors and other specialists in the movies.

Brown became active in Local 776 of the Motion Picture Film Editors. He began a three-year term as a director in 1959.

There was some side-work as well. The Pittsburgh Courier of April 20, 1940 reported that Brown handled the sound effects for Mr. Washington Goes to Town, produced by Dixie National Pictures. It starred Mantan Moreland and was described as the “first all-Negro feature comedy.” (Jack Benny fans note: Eddie Anderson isn’t in this, but Johnny Taylor is. The Courier reviewer remarked he had “played so much with Eddie ‘Rochester’ Anderson that he sounds him” and that one funny gag was when Taylor produced “an egg by magic and says, ‘That’s the egg that Jack Benny laid on the Rochester Hour’.”).

We mentioned Brown’s other career. The Hollywood Citizen-News reported on July 17, 1942:

Dr. Treg. E. Brown, chiropractor, today, announced that he would open new offices Monday [20] at 5658 Sunset Blvd. and specialize in dermaculture.

Brown also had a musical hobby that saw his name get mentioned in the Citizen-News starting in 1951. He was a square dance caller. Researcher Devon Baxter dug around and reported on Cartoon Research that Brown replaced Phil Monroe as the studio’s square dance instructor and caller (he was instructing the beginners class in February 1950), and was even featured on the TV show You Asked For It in 1951. Oddly, Brown wasn’t asked to voice the dance caller in the Warners cartoon Hillbilly Hare (recorded in mid-1949, released in summer 1950). The role went to John T. Smith.

What you may not know is Brown dusted off his lyricist skills and penned the words to a call. Here it is from the Sets-In-Order Yearbook of Square Dancing, 1957.

GOING GNATS
By Treg Brown, Los Angeles Calif.
Gals to the center and back to your men
The gents star right just as pretty as you can
Now back to the left, go across the track
Box the gnat and pet ‘em back to back
Now get along home get along get along—(CW)
And box the gnat before the gnat is gone
The gents star left to your left hand maid
And box the gnat, don’t be afraid
To take a little walk to your right-hand girl—(CW)
And box the gnat with a pretty little twirl
And the gents star left on your toe and heel
And meet your partner with a wagon wheel . . .

What is “Box the gnat,” you ask? Read this link. My guess is “CW” means “cake walk.”

No Treg trivia would be complete without noting the reference to him in the 1955 release One Froggy Evening (to the right). And Brown makes an appearance, of sorts, in the 1962 short Fish and Slips where he is seen on TV by Sylvester and Sylvester, Jr. with his prize catch: “a record-breaking, sharp-nosed Tralfaz.”

Brown died in Irvine, California on April 28, 1984.