Dental Hygiene Dilemma

Frank Zappa - Dental Hygiene Dilemma (Excerpt from 200 Motels)

As one might expect from a cartoon put out by Frank Zappa, the music and sound design has a great deal of thought put into it.  As is on par with much of Zappa's work, some of the motifs tend to be very scatterbrained and hectic.  However, I feel that the tension is used quite stylishly and appropriately as the main character, Jeff, is having a mental episode as he battles with his inner-self.  There are a variety of listening modes included, as causal sound effects are put into play with the cartoon, such as when the television spits or simply when Jeff is fidgeting on his bed.  There are also some more "cartoony" semantic sounds, such as when the bad conscious shakes his head, followed by Jeff nodding his head, both sounding like mallets hitting coconuts.  In addition, there is a great deal of ambience used.  Whether it be through composed music or more subtle nonsensical sounds, it really has a powerful effect on the scene.  The Gestalt Principal is used fairly heavily in the cartoon via the principals of illusion and figure and ground.  Throughout the scene, illusion is used quite frequently.  This is when a few ambient sounds are layered over each other, sometimes in conjunction with sporadic music, to create a largely hectic feeling.  Often it sounds like there is more going on than there actually is.  Also, figure and ground is portrayed as Jeff may be speaking in the front of the shot while his surroundings may be making background noise, whether it be his good conscious on the television screen or other ambience from various sources.