Probably the first piece of modern music I remember ever really liking - the jazzy story told in the cartoon The Three Little Bops. The music was written specifically for this Warner Bros cartoon by Milton Rogers and recorded by him and his band, Shorty Rogers and His Giants, in late 1956. The lyrics were spoken by Stan Freberg.
Very catchy, funny, with hand-drawn animation cells brilliantly synced with the music, and with a trumpet solo at the end (or is it a flugelhorn?) that is just so fluid, smooth and cool. The tune also gives a glimpse of popular music in the early pre-dawn days just before the sun rose on the rock and roll era. Could loop this track for hours. Makes me smile.
Couldn't find the original cartoon on YouTube, but this remastered soundtrack is clean and the picture stills give credit to the late, great jazzmen who gave this tune life.
(It was recorded the year I was born. But I wouldn’t have heard it until my parents bought our first TV set, which I remember mum saying they plugged in on the day that Princess Margaret (the late Queen’s sister) got married in 1960. Later in the 60s, Channel 9 in Adelaide used to run nightly episodes of the Warner Brothers Bugs Bunny Show after the evening news. So I guess I first heard it there.)