toot horn

Toot, Whistle, Plunk and Boom

Toot, Whistle, Plunk and Boom is an educational Adventures in Music animated short film produced by Walt Disney Productions, and originally released to theaters by Disney's Buena Vista Distribution on November 10 1953. A sequel to the first Adventures in Music cartoon, the 3-D short Melody, Toot, Whistle, Plunk and Boom is a stylized presentation of the evolution of four musical instruments over the ages: the horn ("toot"), the flute ("whistle"), the guitar ("plunk"), and the drum ("boom").

The first animated cartoon to be filmed and released in widescreen CinemaScope, Toot, Whistle, Plunk and Boom won the 1954 Academy Award for Best Short Subject (Cartoons). In 1994, it was voted #29 of the 50 Greatest Cartoons of all time by members of the animation field.

Synopsis

The credits roll over a stylised music shop. The names of cast and crew and title of the feature are superimposed over the various instruments and instrument cases. The scene then cuts to an owl, who rushes to a schoolhouse full of bird children as a drumroll is played on a snare.

A brief musical section introduces us to "the subject for today": the study of musical instruments. The owl explains to the class (and the viewer) that all music originates from four core sounds: toot (brass), whistle (woodwinds), plunk (strings) and boom (percussion).

Toot

The film then jumps to a group of cavemen, each of whom have discovered the nuclear form of one of the above sounds. We begin with a portly caveman who has discovered that blowing through a cow's horn produces a pleasing "toot". We advance to ancient Egypt in 2000 BC, where the caveman discovers that metal horns produce even better sounds. He celebrates by breaking into a two-note jazz solo as Egyptian characters painted on the walls boogie down.

We return to the owl, who explains that making a trumpet longer made its tone lower. We then visit a Roman trumpeter who crashes into a column and bends his horn into a grotesque shape... however, he soon discovers that despite this change in form, the trumpet does not sound any different: it is possible to change the horn's shape without changing the pitch.

However, as the owl explains, this horn can only produce certain notes; in order to get all of the notes required for even a simple tune, you would need four horns of different lengths. But if we create a horn with valves, we can effectively have four horns in one, and this fact is celebrated with another jazz solo.

Whistle

We return to the cavemen, where the next one is trying to impress his "cavegirl" by blowing on a blade of grass; he further discovers that adding holes to the tube allows him to modify the sound in interesting ways.

The owl explains that this system of holes is the basis for every woodwind instrument, including the clarinet and the saxophone.

Plunk

The next caveman has discovered that plucking on his bow produces a pleasant sound. An offscreen choir explains (as the animation shows) how to create a simple harp by adding a resonator, some extra strings and tuning pegs, and rearranging it all.

The owl mentions that you can either pluck the harp, or play it with a bow. We then briefly visit several periods in history, where we see several string instruments being played in similar fashion, and finish with a string quartet.

Boom

The final caveman beats on his chest to produce a "boom", and hits other parts of his body for other sounds. The owl escorts us through history and explains how a variety of instruments emerged from this basic theory, ranging from rattles to complex drum kits and even the bass drums of marching bands.

Conclusion

The chorus recaps that all music, from the banjo to Latin percussion to "music oriental" to a grand symphony, emerges from the four nuclear sounds.

Re-releases and educational use

Toot, Whistle, Plunk and Boom was reissued in 1963 as a companion short to that year's theatrical re-release of Fantasia. The short is available on two Disney DVD sets: it is a bonus feature on the Fantasia 2000 DVD, and is one of the selected shorts included in the Walt Disney Treasures set ''Disney Rarities: Celebrated Shorts, 1920s–1960s.

In 1964, Disney issued a re-recorded and expanded version of the short on LP entitled "A Child's Introduction to Melody and the Instruments of the Orchestra."

While the film was originally released into theatres as a part of a broader collection of shorts, it continues to be used today in music classrooms to provide an elementary understanding of how musical instruments work.