Toon Tunes: Funny Bone Favorites
Toon Tunes: Funny-Bone Favoritesis the sort of record that can be unsettling to those of us who approach the world with egalitarian, "are we really all that different" mindsets. Could so many people be clamoring for a compilation of cartoon themes, some of them aggressively irritating, others completely unrecognizable? Count out the kitsch factor and things get really scary. Keeping that in mind, whatFunny-Bone Favoritespresents, however, is enough to keep us tuned in. As this 36-track screwball marathon wears on, every third song or so is familiar, even if it doesn't exactly deliver us in front of the TV sets of yore and plant a giant bowl of Honeycomb in our hands. Four of the first five jingles--"The Flintstones," "The Jetsons," "George of the Jungle," and "The Bullwinkle Show"--cut, thanks to modern-day cable access, through great generational swaths, getting even Grandma in on the swing of things. Popping up like wrong turns for drivers in memory lane, though, are tracks like "Pinky and the Brain," "Dexter's Laboratory," and "The Ren & Stimpy Show." On the flip side, hipsters hoping to raise their retro-cool factor will like reaching back to plucky, late-'60s-sounding gems like the theme to "The Banana Splits" (Tra-la-la!"), but may be resistant to dusting off the really old ditties--"Bozo the Clown," "Mickey Mouse March," and "Donald Duck" among them. Forgetting all campiness, and even moving away from cartoon land momentarily, two solidly musical excuses for owning this disc can't be denied--the themes to "Peanuts" and "The Pink Panther." Buy it because they're on it, or because the "Huckleberry Hound" song haunts you.--Tammy La Gorce