Em Toon Vee?

One of the reasons I have such affection for songs of the 1930s and 1940s is that they seem so very familiar. For a while, I credited that to my parents, figuring they must have played those songs so much that they were imprinted into my psyche.

Watching some Merrie Melodies cartoon recently, it dawned on me that Warner Brothers is responsible for my familiarity with those songs. I grew up thinking that Merrie Melodies were cartoons using old songs; it didn't occur to me as a child that the songs were actually contemporary at the time the cartoons were produced! These were pre-MTV "music videos," more or less, using covers of popular songs of the day to help hook the tunes in people's minds... and it worked so well that very often, when I hear one of these songs, I picture segments of the cartoons in which I first got to know this delightful music.

Thanks for the entertaining education, WB!