This short video of percussionist and sound effects specialist Josh Harmon (who describes his work as “spreading joy through sound and rhythm!”) collaborating with musician, composer, bandleader and all-around national treasure Jon Batiste to create vintage cartoon sound effects, is exactly the joy-filled experience I needed to witness today.

In the background of the video, you can see a vintage cartoon clip from 1934, from an episode of Popeye called “We Aim to Please.” In the clip, Olive Oyl is busy frenetically making sandwiches. Josh marvels that “it’s amazing to think that these animations were all made by hand without computers,” which is what he recreates in his work. Using tools and materials such as drum sticks, fabric, a slide whistle, and an exercise band, Josh creates sound effects that perfectly match Olive Oyl’s cartoon actions of slicing bread, cutting meat, and more. My favorite part is when Olive Oyl assembles the giant sandwich through a kind of playing card-shuffling move, and Josh flip-flaps his hands back and forth quickly to create the perfect sound.

Of course, I also LOVE watching and listening to Jon Batiste perform just about anything, and his rendition of Scott Joplin’s classic piano rag, “The Entertainer,” is as good as it gets, and fits wonderfully with the Popeye cartoon.

Harmon expresses his excitement about working with Batiste in the video’s caption, stating, “Holy moly it’s an honor to welcome musical icon Jon Batiste onto the channel! The way he thinks about music and sound is so inspiring. Joy levels were reaching unprecedented heights in this room! And his new album BIG MONEY is out now!”

Harmon also promises that next week he’ll be releasing “a long” video that details “the whole process of how we made this, and more!” I can’t wait to see a behind-the-scenes demonstration and learn more about the process of creating cool sound effects!

Enjoy the video, below. I hope you love it as much as I do!

See more of Josh Harmon’s amazing sound effects work at his Instagram or YouTube.

Previously:
• Fred Armisen’s 100 Sound Effects album coming soon!
• BBC sound effect archive posted online
• Don Martin’s sound effects (alphabetical order)
• How some old cartoon sound effects were made
• Watch these fascinating demonstrations of sound effect instruments from the silent film era!

In 1965 animator Chuck Jones adapted a short picture book called The Dot and The Line: a romance in lower mathematics as a 9-minute cartoon. It follows a rigid blue line who adores a carefree red dot; she, however, swoons for a swaggering squiggle.

Rejected, the line enrolls in self-improvement boot camp, bending, flexing and inventing dazzling angles until he can sketch cathedrals with a single stroke. When the squiggle tries to match the precision, his chaotic scribbles collapse, and the dot chooses discipline over disorder.

Narrated with champagne-dry wit by Robert Morley, the film unfolds on spare backgrounds that feel lifted from a Mondrian canvas, while the squiggle’s jittery form was drawn on rice paper so the ink could literally misbehave. Norton Juster, author of the 1963 book, adapted his own text, seasoning math jokes with romantic wisdom: “To the vector belong the spoils.”

The short captured the 1965 Oscar for Best Animated Short, one of MGM’s final cartoons and proof that Jones could do more than torment coyotes. Decades later, its crisp pop-art minimalism still inspires.

Previously:
• Chuck Jones’ 9 rules for writing Road Runner stories
• Chuck Jones directed this Oscar-winning government-funded cartoon promoting universal health care (1949)
• WATCH: How Looney Tunes’ Chuck Jones evolved as an artist
• Video of Chuck Jones drawing Wile E. Coyote
• Dr. Seuss, Chuck Jones, and Mel Blanc’s US Army cartoon warning against loose lips (1943)
• That’s all folks! Warner Bros CEO murders Bugs Bunny for fun and profit
• This 70-year-old cartoon made a hell of an argument for single-payer healthcare