Dave Franklin: From Tin Pan Alley to Looney Tunes

September 28 was the birthday of songwriter Dave Franklin (1895-1970), best known for writing, with his frequent collaborator Cliff Friend the song “The Merry Go Round Broke Down” which began to be used as a theme for Warner Brothers Looney Tunes cartoons in 1937.

Franklin was from New York City, where he was already working as a song plugger and vaudeville accompanist by his teenage years, Later he became a nightclub entertainer in his own right. Several of his films were used in the 1929 musical Broadway Scandals with Sally O’Neil, Carmel Myers, and Jack Egan.Harry Green and Kay Francis performed “I’m Isadore the Toreador” in Paramount on Parade (1930). Other popular tunes included “When My Dreamboat Comes Home” (1936), “You Can’t Stop Me From Dreaming” (1937), “The Anniversary Waltz” (1941). In addition to Looney Tunes cartoons his music was used in some Hopalong Cassidy pictures, as well as Alice in Wonderland (1933), You Can’t Have Everything (1937), Mr. Dodd Takes the Air (1937), A Slight Case of Murder (1938), Ice Follies of 1939,Moonlight in Havana (1942), Bowery to Broadway (1944), I’ll Tell the World (1945) and many others.

To find out more about vaudeville past and present, consult No Applause, Just Throw Money: The Book That Made Vaudeville Famous,