⚠️ JUST ONE THING: This theory is not canon information about the animated short film Accordions Geoffrey & Mary Melodica by Louie Zong. It’s a nutjob little hypothesis I came up with initially as a joke that unfolded into a fan theory with a lot of holes.
The original work is Zong’s truth, and it shows what he intended to show. My theory is below it, and it’s purely made for fun.
I haven’t been writing theories about media I’ve seen, for most of my life, as I am mostly focused on my own creations, art and music practice (I play melodica & accordion and related stuff, amateurly as a beginner for now).
However, when I watched Accordions Geoffrey & Mary Melodica released on Cartoon Cartoons (by Louie Zong), I REALLY LIKED IT. I am not even a typical cartoon watcher, and I felt deeply connected to that animated short film. It was wholesome and even had a nice message.
This is Accordions Geoffrey & Mary Melodica, by the way, for those who want to see it:
Grandpa Helps His Granddaughter
This cute digital claymation-like animated short film seems to contain the message of family love and friendship mostly. That’s the message everyone seems to pick up, reasonably, because when people look at the bigger picture, the story is easy to follow and simple.
The story follows two characters handling bullies at the playground in a kind of questionable but effective way. All the characters in the story do not speak with human voices, but with instrument sounds.
Mary Melodica shrieks to her grandpa, Accordions Geoffrey, about the keytar and the electric guitar kids making fun of her melodica. They specifically said “Melodicas are for babies” – which is actually a very common stereotype around melodicas.
Björn Guitarssön and Kiki Keytar are displayed obviously as “the cool instruments” while Mary Melodica was shown as “Kids’ instrument”.
Instead of handling it sanely by intervening between the children and talking to them calmly about respecting each other, Accordions Geoffrey leads Mary to some sort of ancient free reed instrument dungeon, where she is given an ancient artifact.
A nice short song plays, one that is also sung by instruments without human vocals, but has subtitles as if there were human voices. It’s very harmonious and easy to sing along to.
Mary wins the bullies over by blasting a really loud, deep note from the ancient artifact, a ridiculously big golden melodica, at them.
It looks larger than her own body and appears as if it was forged by some sort of ancient free reed race.
The sound that the ancient artifact melodica makes is ominous and creates wind that is strong enough to pull their lips away from their teeth as if they were blown by a leaf blower.
“That was cool”, they say after the blast, and suddenly accept her as a respectable musician and let her jam with them.
All ends well, with the happy ending where Geoffrey watches the kids jam together instead of having an instrument superiority complex. There is relief. He harmonises with a bird like he did at the beginning of the film.
But yeah, TL:DR: Accordion guy grandpa helps his melodica girl granddaughter face people who mocked her, and they are all happy. That’s what the story is about.
Positive Free Reed Instrument Message
I personally think Accordions Geoffrey & Mary Melodica has a deeper message about free reed instruments being respectable instruments instead of toys or annoying.
It’s a silly video with silly characters, and it’s not mentioned anywhere in the video directly, but I will continue to believe that it’s one of the few media that exist that put melodicas under a good light.
Mary melodica wins the keytars and guitars over. They jam. They accept Mary, and they coexist as parts of music, making something together, even if she had to win them over with violence.
Free reed instruments get a LOT of slander, including melodicas. I might write a separate article about this, but it’s important to note it here as well that melodicas are generally seen as toys or child-oriented instruments, even if they are used professionally by famous musicians like Gorillaz.
It’s an ongoing thing that’s happening now, even in 2026 as I am writing this article.
They have become trendy right now, though, but are mostly seen as easy instruments to learn music on or meme devices like Otamatones or Stylophones. It’s the 2026 kazoo.
I haven’t really seen people making media that honor melodicas or show them as serious instruments, as more than memes or kids’ music learning instruments or instruments for covers of popular songs, aside from a few stuff made for people who are already in the melodica niche or fans of Augustus Pablo or Gorillaz.
Accordions Geoffrey & Mary Melodica is doing a great job at showing an actual jamming session with melodica being part of a musical ensemble unironically at the end of the story.
There is no irony in that scene. Kiki plays her synth, Björn plays his guitar, and Mary plays her melodica passionately. They are casually making music together equally.
In real genres of music in real life, this happens with melodicas with street music, tango, jazz and indie or other sorts of stuff.
Melodicas are not widely known for their professional use and do not have a specific type of music they’re used in, which is also why there are plenty of people who don’t even know what a melodica is in the first place.
This cute animated short film places a brick on the small and barely existent wall of the unironic melodica reputation, and I personally consider it meaningful, despite the fact that most people won’t think of it like this and focus on the family/friends message.
As someone who owns and plays a melodica, this short film really warmed my heart. It gave me a feeling of hope that my very articulate and precise instrument is more than the shallow media representation of it.
Something Feels Odd About Them…
I didn’t stop at merely thinking about the melodica symbolism after the original message.
I WENT DEEPER.
I started thinking about the design choices and the worldbuilding as symbols that exist, as things that exist beyond the artistic decisions that make the short film look cute and soft to the viewer’s eyes and ears.
I kept noticing something about the characters’ behaviours after having watched the video a few times.
Geoffrey and Mary felt like instruments trying to pass as people.
This really stood out for me because of how the instrument people kept appearing.
Things Got Even Weirder
I watched more of Louie Zong’s stuff with the characters Accordions Geoffrey and Mary Melodica to expand my knowledge and to check whether there is more of this weird nonhuman vibe coming from these characters.
Specifically, I found the videos Accordions Geoffrey & Mary Melodica in: QUIET PLEASE! and also accordions geoffrey and mary melodica episode 1 (SUBTITLED).
Nothing could have prepared me for what I saw.
These characters had more to their lives than just the melodica bullying from the Cartoon Cartoons pilot, and these two other videos I found made me feel as if there’s something weirder, stranger, going on.
These are the two videos I am talking about that I will bring up later:
If it Looks Like an Instrument, Swims Like an Instrument, Quacks like an Instrument, then…
What really kept my brain awake at night for days was the fact that the characters with instruments speak with instrument sounds as if it’s human speech.
Why do they sound like instruments? I asked.
I did NOT accept that it’s probably just a style thing to make the characters more expressive and emotionally coherent by many people (which is probably what’s actually happening here haha).
A sane person would think that, oh, this is maybe just them using their instruments to speak or representing the instruments they play. Or that the instruments they hold are part of them and that they are inseparable.
NO.
THEY TALK LIKE INSTRUMENTS, regardless of whether they have an instrument in their hands or not.
They can also be seen WITHOUT holding their instruments in scenes like the dungeon scene from the Cartoon Cartoons pilot or accordions geoffrey and mary melodica episode 1 (SUBTITLED), where both Accordions Geoffrey and Mary Melodica are just existing.
In the dungeon scene from the Cartoon Cartoons pilot, they are CLEARLY existing and walking without their instruments, which is the most reliable example of them being able to exist without their instruments separately if they choose to.
Inside accordions geoffrey and mary melodica episode 1 (SUBTITLED), Geoffrey is seen without an accordion in his arms.
Not only that, but it’s shown that he does not represent the entirety of accordions. He is obsessed with them and owns multiple. He can exist without them (even if that would probably make him really sad).
Well.
I also really think that the characters physically looking similar to their instruments can also be a clue that something is up.
Someone could argue that OHhHHH, that’s just the art style, and all characters are made to sound and look like instruments as a style choice…!
NO!
In Accordions Geoffrey & Mary Melodica in: QUIET PLEASE!, WE CAN SEE NORMAL PEOPLE.
WE CAN SEE ACTUAL PEOPLE THERE who don’t hold instruments that can also TALK WITH HUMANLIKE VOICES.
And ALL THE NORMAL PEOPLE AND WILDLIFE ARE DISTURBED BY THEM.
These people are not holding instruments and seem disturbed.
And this guy actually almost sounds and looks like a normal human! HOLY SHIT? Even if what he says can be heard as “BLABLABLABLABLABLE”, it 100% sounds closer to actual speech than what Geoffrey and Mary have going on.
The fact that even wildlife like ducks is disturbed by them feels sad. Almost as if they are excluded on purpose.
And this is apparently not mutual to instrument people, too.
There is a literal instrument DOG, one with a flute, that is also threatened by a human man.
The dog made flute sounds, like kinda high pitched ones. It sounded like an INSTRUMENT and not a normal dog.
What’s more interesting to me is that the end of the QUIET PLEASE! video ends with them literally being contained. Only these three.
Like some sort of cosmic intervention telling the viewer “WE HATE THEM”.
Honestly, that cartoon shows that it’s probably made with the intention of meaningless fun and jokes about melodicas, accordions and flutes being annoying to people’s ears. The title suggests it, after all. And you can rightfully point that out to me.
To me, however, it feels different.
WHAT IF THERE IS A DEEPER REASON FOR THE ATTITUDE THAT HUMANS AND ANIMALS HAVE TOWARDS THE INSTRUMENT THINGS?!
That’s why I am here.
Yes, it is probably not that deep.
Yes, I am probably overthinking it.
BUT HEAR ME OUT.
They Are Instruments. Not From Here.
My theory is that all the instrument beings, like Mary Melodica, Accordions Geoffrey, Bjöen Guitarrsön, Kiki Keytar and the flute dog, are actually entities from a dimension or alternate future timeline where harmony and music are one of the life fundamentals, and there are life forms that look almost human but are actually instruments.
They normally live in a world that isn’t anything like ours. Houses don’t exist, and landscapes have grass plains and hills that stretch endlessly forever and have neutral weather everywhere.
It’s a place where everything is musical, with music being ecology, including trees with notes on them and wildlife like birds with artificial sounds.
It is uncannily different from Earth as everything looks artificial, strange, and without cities or villages around.
They have culture, hierarchies, tastes, and history. They act similarly to how humans act, but aren’t quite the same.
From what we know, every inhabitant of that world exists to play music. No human romance stuff, jobs, economy or such things implied.
Outside of the fact that they look like humans and have feelings like them, I theorise that they are humanoid instrument entities that happen to externally look humanoid, and that they possess instrument anatomy/internals to be able to sound like instruments, too.
Reeds instead of vocal cords. Instrument parts on the body, like keys hidden under clothes, or mechanisms hidden under skin.
Something inside them could have been craving to appear almost human and not exist fully like instruments, but not being quite there. Existing almost like a glitch between the existence of personhood and instrumenthood.
What The Fuck Happened?
Despite being instruments, I noticed they still preserved a whole lot of humanity with how they act, their names, furniture, social hierarchies and all…
I think I know what happened for them to be this way.
The world in which Accordions Geoffrey and Mary Melodica live used to look like ours a LONG, long time ago. There were likely humans there, ones who lived as humans do now, with a whole society. They had human names, social groups and culture and made instruments as artistic tools.
Something changed. Gradually, over centuries.
It wasn’t a disaster, war or a violent fall of human civilisation. The world transformed, which explains why everything inside that world feels tranquil and dreamlike.
Music started becoming more important.
Music became an identity instead of just an activity people did, and they grouped depending on the instruments they would play – categorising themselves by instrument like “Accordion People” or “Melodica People”.
Socialising between instrument people was also becoming about music, and they would start to display friendship or other forms of connection through jamming together or harmonising.
Harmony became a fundamental force of nature, so much that music became interwoven into reality itself.
The trees began growing notes, and animals communicated through harmony. Resonance became as natural as wind or water, and sound became part of the environment. Everything became musical.
Humanity changed alongside animals and the environment, naturally. Instruments were already humanity’s closest attempt to imitate harmony, and they all became symbols of self expression and connection, more intensely than they were before.
These groups became lineages and cultures, with every generation of people becoming more musical and physically closer to instruments than the previous. Yet they retained a big amount of their humanity, like human names (like Geoffrey and Mary), clothes, personalities, or families.
Even cultural biases from their human past stayed – like the belief that melodicas are unserious and for babies, which is a surviving cultural bias.
Civilisation changed over countless generations, as harmony and connection inspired people to live in small and tightly knit communities again, decentralised, without needing all the infrastructure that the original humans left behind.
Mysterious ruins and relics like the giant golden melodica were traces that remained from old humanity, which the instrument people did not fully understand, but they preserved them because they thought of them as important.
Interestingly, a few small regions of humans chose to stay traditional or were isolated from the rest of the world, so they didn’t evolve like the others, which resulted in them existing in The Human Zone, where ordinary original humans still lived in small, hidden and isolated cities that did not exist around harmony, but rather typical human stuff like commerce.
This created a split between the Instrument civilisation and the Human civilisation, or the remaining ancient humans. There is prejudice between them. Humans do not react to the music of the Instrument people but rather to what IT REPRESENTS.
Music became deeply associated with the instrument people. It became a cultural marker that residents of The Human Zone would react negatively to music as a whole or interact with it significantly less.
Instrument people and musical animals typically were social and eager to harmonise with humans, but humans wouldn’t trust them or consider them safe.
Accordions Geoffrey and Mary Melodica visited The Human Zone and were treated as nuisances and outsiders. They were treated with unusual hostility for simply wanting to play music around people.
People with accordions, melodicas and flutes are normally not thrown tomatoes at or threatened in human society. Instrument people are, because they are seen as a different species.
Instrument people are from the world of harmony, don’t understand human prejudices, play music and just want to connect with others, even humans. They feel compelled to seek humans, as they are unconsciously drawn toward their origin. Humans have social rules and assumptions which they can’t understand, and they reject them harshly.
Instrument people may be humanity’s descendants, carrying pieces of humanity which they no longer remember from their forgotten past.
They live in a world where humans once existed everywhere before a shift. A world where the art form of music became so ingrained in life that over thousands of years, it changed their whole existence.
People stopped doing music.
They BECAME music.
Thank You For The Music
Still, none of this is canon, as I theorised about it.
This is how I, as Mark, interpreted the world of Accordions Geoffrey and Mary Melodica. None of what I wrote here has been confirmed, and I could be wrong about it, honestly.
To me, it doesn’t really matter a lot if this is true or not. I really enjoyed the fantastic, funny videos that Louie Zong made, and coming up with this theory was very fun. I enjoyed something that was already amazing and diving deep enough to never see it the same way again.
The original videos were so interesting and unique that I felt hope about the visibility of instruments I personally enjoy playing, like accordions and melodicas, and they inspired me to think deeply. I spent an unreasonably long amount of time wondering whether musical entities that speak with instrument sounds had inherited fragments of humanity, all because of this online animation miniseries.
Sincerely, kudos to Louie Zong for creating Accordions Geoffrey and Mary Melodica, I honestly can’t get enough of these instrument guys, and I had a great time :)
By the way, if you discuss, reference, expand upon or share this theory elsewhere, I’d REALLY really appreciate being credited as the original author of it. I’m very curious to see where other people will take these ideas.
If you saw the series yourself before reading this article, PLEASE tell me your thoughts about what YOU think happened!
Shoot me an email anytime, it’s on my Contact Me page!
I’m always eager to hear what people think! – just don’t be a jerk about it haha