Powerhouse (song)

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“Powerhouse” is a 1937 instrumental musical composition by Raymond Scott. Nowadays it is probably best known as the iconic “assembly line” music in Warner Bros. animated cartoons.

“Powerhouse” was first recorded by the Raymond Scott Quintette (actually a sextet) in New York on February 20, 1937, and was commercially released on the Irving Mills-owned Master Records label (catalog #111) coupled with another Scott composition, “The Toy Trumpet.” Both titles remained in Scott’s repertoire for decades, both were adapted in Warner Brothers cartoons by WB music director Carl Stalling (along with a dozen other Scott titles), and both have been recorded by numerous other artists. Stalling, who spiced his scores with “Powerhouse” dozens of times, never created a complete version of the work; his adaptations exist as truncated quotations.

Structurally, “Powerhouse” consists of two distinct—and seemingly unrelated—musical themes, played at different tempos. Both have been used in numerous cartoons. The first theme, sometimes referred to as “Powerhouse A,” is a frantic passage typically employed in chase and high-speed vehicle scenes to imply whirlwind velocity. The slower theme, “Powerhouse B,” is the “assembly line” music, which accompanies scenes of repetitive mechanical activity. “Powerhouse” in its entirety places “B” in the center while “A” opens and closes the work in the sequence A-B-A.

The first use of “Powerhouse” in a cartoon occurred in the 1943 Warner Bros. Looney Tunes short Porky Pig’s Feat, directed by Frank Tashlin. [1]. It was subsequently featured in over forty other Warner Bros. cartoons. The most well-known “assembly-line” usage of “Powerhouse B” occurs in Bob Clampett's Baby Bottleneck (1946), in which newborn babies (of various species) are processed on a conveyor belt in time to the melody.

The original Raymond Scott Quintette recordings, including “Powerhouse,” were licensed in the 1990s for The Ren and Stimpy Show, and can be heard in twelve episodes. “Powerhouse” has been used in Animaniacs, The Bernie Mac Show, The Simpsons, Duckman, and The Drew Carey Show. The tune was adapted in the film Honey, I Shrunk the Kids, served as bumper theme music for Cartoon Network from 1997 to 2002 under U.S. license from the tune's publisher, Music Sales Corp, and can be heard ten times in the 2004 feature Looney Tunes: Back in Action.

[edit] Recent performances, recordings, and usages

In recent years, “Powerhouse” has been recorded by jazz clarinetist Don Byron on his album Bug Music, pedal steel guitarist Jon Rauhouse, the Metropole Orchestra, the Beau Hunks Sextette, the Coctails, and jazz guitarist Skip Heller. In 1993, one entire episode of the cartoon series Animaniacs, “Toy Shop Terror,” was set to Warner Bros. music director Richard Stone’s arrangement of the classic Scott work. The title, as arranged by Michelle DiBucci, has been in the repertoire of Kronos Quartet since 1994.

The rock band Rush adapted part of “Powerhouse” in their 1978 song “La Villa Strangiato” (5:49 into the track) on their Hemispheres album, as did Soul Coughing in their song “Bus to Beelzebub” from the album Ruby Vroom. The tune has also been appropriated by They Might Be Giants (on the song “Rhythm Section Want Ad”), Devo (on “Fraulein”), and others. In Looney Tunes: Back In Action, a new “rock” version of the title was performed. Other contemporary artists who have recorded versions of "Powerhouse" include Thelonious Moog, The Tiptons (with Amy Denio), the Grammy-nominated string ensemble Quartet San Francisco, and Steroid Maximus (featuring J. G. Thirlwell).

An episode of Jimmy Neutron in 2004 featured a parody of “Powerhouse” during a scene where the Nanobots go and delete everyone in Retroville. The music was done in the exact same tempo, key and style, but with a different melody.

In 2006-2007, the “assembly line” theme was used in a highly choreographed commercial for the Visa check card. The commercial, entitled “Lunch,” was staged in a manner seemingly intended to be reminiscent of the song’s cartoon uses.