I remember first noticing the connection between the music in old WB cartoons and some 78rpm Raymond Scott Quintet records I had. The cartoons used to utilize a riff from the Scott tune “Powerhouse” quite often, as I recall.
Here’s a compilation with that theme running through it...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r3FLN0iQ9SQ
RE Powerhouse:
THANK YOU! Because I NEVER knew what that tune was called!!!
The band Rush did an interpolation of it too in “La Via Strangiato” on the album “Hemispheres”...