The frantic brass-heavy jazz that plays whenever a cartoon conveyor belt spins out of control was composed by Raymond Scott, who never wrote a single note for animation. This episode uncovers the double life of the man born Harry Warnow in Brooklyn, a Juilliard-trained pianist who picked a new name to avoid accusations of nepotism under his bandleader brother at CBS, formed the six-member Raymond Scott Quintette in 1936 because quintet sounded crisper, and composed entirely by ear, drilling his musicians until every phrase was locked in memory.

Obsessed with perfection, Scott edited recordings by lifting and dropping needles between two acetate disc machines, staged a silent music concert in 1941, and in 1942 assembled the first racially integrated radio band with Ben Webster, Cozy Cole and Billy Taylor. Frustrated by human limits, he found ...