Whoville vs. Italian Futurism

Watching How The Grinch Stole Christmas (1966) tonight—particularly an early scene where the Grinch complains of the “noise, noise, noise, noise” made by the Who girls and boys with their toys on Christmas morning—what came to my mind, and made me chuckle, was Italian Futurism, specifically the composer Luigi Russolo and his Intonarumori.

Electro Whocarnio Flooks

First, from the Grinch cartoon:

For, tomorrow, I know all the Who girls and boys

Will wake bright and early. They'll rush for their toys! 

And then! Oh, the noise! Oh, the noise! Noise! Noise! Noise!

There's one thing I hate! All the NOISE! NOISE! NOISE! NOISE! 

And they'll shriek squeaks and squeals, racing 'round on their wheels.

They'll dance with jingtinglers tied onto their heels.

They'll blow their floofloovers. They'll bang their tartookas.

They'll blow their whohoopers. They'll bang their gardookas.

They'll spin their trumtookas. They'll slam their slooslunkas.

They'll beat their blumbloopas. They'll wham their whowonkas.

And they'll play noisy games like zoozittacarzay,

A roller-skate type of lacrosse and croquet!

And then they'll make ear-splitting noises galooks

On their great big electro whocarnio flooks! 

[https://ninjamonkeyspy.livejournal.com/585154.html] 

Luigi Russolo (left) and his assistant Ugo Piatti with their Intonarumori.

And now from a post about Russolo’s instruments:

The Intonarumori were a family musical instruments invented in 1913 by italian futurist painter and musical composer Luigi Russolo. They were acoustic noise generators that permitted to create and control in dynamic and pitch several different types of noises. 

Each instrument was made of a wooden parallelepiped sound box with a carton or metal speaker on its front side. The performer turned a crank or pressed an electric button to produce the sound whose pitch was controlled by means of a lever on top of the box. The lever could be moved over a scale in tones, semitones and the intermediate gradations within a range of more than one octave. 

Inside the box there were a wooden or metal wheel (whose shape or diameter varied depending on the model) that make a catgut or metal string vibrate. The tension of the string was modified by means of the lever allowing glissandos or specific notes. At one end of the string there is a drumhead that transmits vibrations to the speaker. 

There were 27 varieties of intonarumori with different names according to the sound produced: howling, thunder, crackling, crumpling, exploding, gurgling, buzzing, hissing and so on. 

[https://thereminvox.com/stories/instruments/intonarumori/]