Powerhouse (instrumental)
"Powerhouse" is an instrumental musical composition by Raymond Scott, perhaps best known today as the iconic "assembly line" music in animated cartoons released by Warner Bros.
History
In scripted comments read on the First Anniversary Special of CBS Radio's Saturday Night Swing Club, on which the Raymond Scott Quintette performed, host Paul Douglas announced that "Powerhouse" had been premiered on that program in January or early February 1937.Scott's Quintette first recorded "Powerhouse" in New York on February 20, 1937, along with three other titles. This recording was first commercially issued on the Irving Mills-owned Master Records label as Master 111, coupled with another Scott composition, "The Toy Trumpet". After the demise of the Master label late in 1937, "Powerhouse" was reissued on Brunswick 7993, and subsequently on Columbia 36311. The same take was issued on all releases.
Both "Powerhouse" and "The Toy Trumpet" remained in Scott's repertoire for decades, both were adapted for Warner Bros. cartoon soundtracks 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, with all his adaptations existing as excerpts.
The United States publisher of the title is Music Sales Corporation. Outside the U.S., the title is controlled by Warner/Chappell Music.
Structure
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 sometimes accompanies scenes of repetitive, machine-like activity. "Powerhouse" in its entirety places "B" in the center while "A" opens and closes the work in the sequence A-B-A.Personnel
- Raymond Scott - piano
- Dave Harris - saxophone
- Pete Pumiglio - clarinet
- Dave Wade - trumpet
- Louis Shoobe - double bass
- Johnny Williams - drums
Use in cartoon works
The "Powerhouse A" section featured prominently during Bugs Bunny's altercation with a gremlin in Clampett's 1943 Merrie Melodies cartoon Falling Hare. The 1953 Merrie Melodies cartoon Duck Dodgers in the 24½th Century, directed by Chuck Jones, contains Stalling's lengthiest adaptation of the "Powerhouse A" section, clocking in at one minute and twenty-five seconds.
Other Warner cartoons which contain excerpts from "Powerhouse" include Birdy and the Beast, Cat-Tails for Two, Early to Bet, Falling Hare, His Bitter Half, House-Hunting Mice, It's Hummer Time, Jumpin' Jupiter, Rocket Squad, Sheep in the Deep, Compressed Hare, and dozens more.
In the 1960s, producer Hal Seeger and composer/arranger Winston Sharples adapted "Powerhouse" and other Scott compositions in dozens of episodes of their Batfink cartoon series.
The original Raymond Scott Quintette recordings, including "Powerhouse," were licensed in the early 1990s for soundtrack usage in twelve episodes of The Ren and Stimpy Show. Various passages of the tune have been arranged for use in The Simpsons, Duckman, The Bernie Mac Show, and The Drew Carey Show. An entire 1993 episode of Animaniacs, "Toy Shop Terror," was set to Warner Bros. music director Richard Stone's arrangement of the composition. "Powerhouse" also served as bumper theme music for Cartoon Network from 1997 to 2003, and can be heard as a systematic rock theme in the 2003 feature film .
"Powerhouse" has been used In The Simpsons four times. The first occurs in "And Maggie Makes Three" during a montage of a bowling pin assembly line. In the episode "Bart Has Two Mommies", "Powerhouse" B is adapted in a scene that pays homage to the 1937 Disney short The Old Mill, when Homer Simpson gets caught in the Old Mill while trying to save his Rubber Duckie. In the episode "Little Big Girl", "Powerhouse" was used during the sequence where the fire at Cletus' farm is lit. In the episode "The Fool Monty", "Powerhouse" was adapted as background music for a construction scene in which Charles Montgomery Burns, having lost his memory, is led to a dangerous construction site by Homer Simpson, who seeks revenge for Burns' years of cruel behavior. Burns walks along moving girders, narrowly avoids flying rivets, and other well-worn cartoon construction site gags. Simpsons creator Matt Groening once ranked "Powerhouse" as #14 on a list of his "100 Favorite Things."
In the SpongeBob SquarePants episode "Broken Alarm" from season 12, an arrangement of the song plays over a scene of SpongeBob SquarePants using a Rube Goldberg machine to get to work.
Recent performances, recordings, and usages
In recent years, Powerhouse has been recorded by jazz clarinetist Don Byron on his album Bug Music, jazz pianist Ted Kooshian on his 2009 CD Ted Kooshian's Standard Orbit Quartet: Underdog, and other Stories..., pedal steel guitarist Jon Rauhouse, The Metropole Orchestra, The Beau Hunks Sextette, The Coctails, and jazz guitarist Skip Heller. 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 instrumental "La Villa Strangiato" on their Hemispheres album, as did ska/soul band The Pietasters in Factory Concerto on their 1993 self-titled album, and alternative band Soul Coughing featured it in their song "Bus to Beelzebub" from their 1994 album Ruby Vroom. The tune has also been appropriated by They Might Be Giants, Devo, and others. Other contemporary artists who have recorded versions of "Powerhouse" include Thelonious Moog, The Tiptons, Quartet San Francisco, and Steroid Maximus. Lee Presson and the Nails included the song on their album Jump-swing from Hell: Live At the Hi-ball Lounge.
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 intended to be reminiscent of the song's cartoon uses.
In August 2009, Sinking Ship Productions staged a musical portrait of Raymond Scott entitled Powerhouse at the New York International Fringe Festival. The composition "Powerhouse" was used as a recurring theme. Sinking Ship presented a revised and fully-staged version of the production at the New Ohio Theatre in Manhattan in 2014.
On August 8, 2013, the Raymond Scott Orchestrette performed an arrangement of "Powerhouse" to accompany Dance Heginbotham's choreographic work Manhattan Research at New York's Lincoln Center Out Of Doors summer concert series.
"Powerhouse" was also used in some PBS commercials in 2000 urging viewers to shop.
In 2014, the Dubuque, Iowa, Colts Drum and Bugle Corps included "Powerhouse" as part of their show, "Dark Side of the Rainbow." In 2016, Bethesda Softworks used the Scott Quintette's original 1937 recording in a showcase presentation for their Fallout 4 and Fallout Shelter games.
In 2017, Chapo Trap House utilized the piece for their Call of Cthulhu Tabletop Game series.