High Note (1960)

It's one thing starting a musical composition from scratch, but when you actually have to make your own sheet of music upon which you place your clefs, crotchets and minims then it can only be more stressful for the conductor here. He is hoping to be able to play the 'Blue Danube' for us, but sadly one of his musical notes has spent a little too long with the 'Little Brown Jug' and this causes not so much a waltz as a roadblock. When the offending symbol emerges, hicoughing as he goes, the maestro sets off in hot pursuit and soon we see this sheet of music turn into something more akin to a game of snakes and ladders. Is Strauss evere going to be heard, or are we destined for some Glenn Miller? It's the sheer simplicity of this, coupled with an amiable degree of mischief and acrobatics, that helps this whizz along. The tools used to build the music are the same as those used to build the animation, and it just goes to show just how impactful one bum note can be.