A Symposium on Popular Songs

　　Ludwig von Drake, the scatterbrained, finance-conscious personality who made his debut as the host of Walt's anthology television series when it was renamed "Wonderful World of Color", hosts this trip down memory lane recalling the hit songs that he wrote. The short bounces between von Drake's indirect introductions and stop-motion-animated sequences of paper cut-outs that bring the music to life. Along with von Drake's fictional tour, viewers are taken on an actual tour through the musical styles of the first sixty years or so of last century. The tunes land somewhere between parody and homage. They include rag, Bing Crosby-style crooning, boogie woogie, and, most memorably, "Puppy Love" à la Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons. This is one of the collection's more dated cartoons (although von Drake's ramblings about stereophonic sound don't seem all that different from a modern technophile's babble), but those who are fond of the popular music of previous generations should get a kick out of it.