Clarence Wheeler

Who was Clarence Wheeler?

Clarence E. Wheeler was an American musician and composer. He created the music for many of Woody Woodpecker series cartoons under Walter Lantz Productions along with films in the 1940s.

Wheeler was born in Walnut, Kansas. He formed an orchestra which appeared on the radio in Chicago in the 1930s, playing on The Terminix All-Star Program in May 1933 on WBBM. He was music director of the station from 1935 to 1938 and was replaced by Caesar Petrillo, brother of future American Federation of Musicians boss James Petrillo. He arrived in Hollywood that year and began writing music published by Alberto Colombo. Among his compositions were Cinemaland Parade, Silhouette in Rhythm, Sing For Our Fallen Brave., There Must Be a Way, Hey There, Mr. Labor, That Night in Donegal, Tiny Little Big Shot, Hello Broadway, London Calling, the last four with James J. May.

He soon went into scoring short films. His first credit was in the 1941 Columbia Pictures release Broken Treaties, directed by former Warner Bros. animator Paul Fennell, where radio commentator Raymond Gram Swing reviewed the history of the invasion of Poland. He was hired in 1944 by George Pal to provide the scores for his Puppetoons and live-action shorts such as This is Oil, released by Paramount Pictures. Wheeler also worked on features, providing orchestrations for the all-star extravaganza Tales of Manhattan and a number of the Blondie movies released by Columbia in the 1940s.