1. ‘The Little Lost Child’ was a popular song in the 1890’s that
sold over two million copies of its sheet music.
•Illustrated slides with the songs lyrics were played
alongside the music, making this the first ever illustrated
song (music video).
•George Thomas was hired by the creators of the song
(Edward B. Marks and Joseph W. Stern) to show a narrative
while the song was playing. Though Thomas had
considered illustrating songs before then, due to the song
‘Where Is My Wandering Boy Tonight?’ (‘92) found in the
records of the theatre Thomas worked at, which had a
single frame of a young man in a saloon.
•He used a ‘Magic Lantern’, an early projector, to project
the illustrations onto a screen while the music was
playing.
•The first performance wasn’t so good, due to upside-
down images of the wrong size and placement, but
everything was fixed in time for the next performance.
•The technique proved so successful, it was used to sell
2. ‘Spooney Melodies’ (’30) was a series of
live action shorts created by Warner
Brothers to showcase current popular
tunes.
•Each one was about 6 minutes long.
•Only 5 were ever made between 1930-
31, and out of the 5, only one has been
recovered.
•The videos featured art deco style
animation along with the live
performer. Because of this, they are
considered to be some of the earliest
music videos.
•The series was replaced by animation
only ‘Merrie Melodies’ in 1931 by the
same studio.
•‘Merrie Melodies’ attempted to
feature reoccurring characters, such as
an early version of Goofy, Mickey
Mouse and a character based on
Mickey named Foxy.
3. ‘Screen Songs’ was a cartoon series, produced
by Fleischer Studios and distributed by Paramount
Pictures between 1929 and 1938.
•It was revived in 1945 by Famous Studios, a division
of Paramount Pictures between 1942 and 1967.
•‘Screen Songs’ had the lyrics, often to popular songs
on the bottom of the screen with a bouncing ball
indicating what syllable should be sung next. It was
kinda like an early karaoke.
•The earlier Fleischer series ’Song Car-Tunes’ were
among the earliest sound films. However, they were
widely unknown due to being played in a select few
theatres owned by Red Seal Pictures Company, which
had the early Lee DeForest Phonofilm sound
reproduction equipment.
•The Fleischers were ahead of the sound revolution,
and just missed the actual change when Red Seal
Pictures filed for bankruptcy in 1926.
4. Top of the Pops was a British music chart program, broadcasted
weekly between 1964 and 2006.
•The early shows didn’t have the technology to have the performers
singing live, so they would mime into the microphone as if singing,
and play as if performing the track.
•The programme always finished with the best-selling single of
the week, that being the only track that could be repeated from
the previous weeks.
•The show originally was going to have only a few episodes, but
ran for over 42 years, reaching landmark episodes of 1000, 1500
and 2000 in the years 1983 to 2002.
•The early episodes of the show featured tightly choreographed dance
troupes such as Ruby Flipper, Legs & Co and Zoo. The main group
Pan's People were used when an act was unable to appear
in person and no footage of them was available – a common
occurrence before promotional videos.
•By the mid-1980s the troupes were dropped and the audience
took a more active role, often dancing in more prominent areas
such as behind performing at the back of the stage, and on podiums..
