Your dream TV show music settings.

[fuzzygobo]

Joe Raposo scored the soundtrack to my childhood, but he had good company:

Vic Mizzy- "Addams Family", "Green Acres"

John Williams- "Star Wars" and many 70's disaster movies: "Poseidon Adventure". "Earthquake", "Towering Inferno", etc.

Keith Mansfield- so many underrated tv scores, "Funky Fanfare(Soul Thing)" my personal fave

Vince Guaraldi- all the "Peanuts" specials

but if my book I'm illustrating ever becomes an animated movie, I want to be like "Duckman" and have Frank Zappa's music behind it.

 

[Drtooth]

I also didn't like when Muppet Babies replaced those great orchestral pieces composed by Robert J. Walsh (the same composer from the G1 Transformers and My Little Pony shows) with that flat, kiddy show-sounding '90s MIDI music composed by Robert Irving and Hank Saroyan in the last few seasons starting with "It's Only Pretendo". Though I did like how the title cards had different music each episode.

That really seemed to be a problem with the 90's. And sometimes, no matter how hard anyone tried it still sounded flat. That's what happens when you're technologically between 1980's zeerust synth sound and 00's not perfect, but less artificial sounding synth. You get that, what I like to call "Barney Background music" sound.

 

[D'Snowth]

I also didn't like when Muppet Babies replaced those great orchestral pieces composed by Robert J. Walsh (the same composer from the G1 Transformers and My Little Pony shows) with that flat, kiddy show-sounding '90s MIDI music composed by Robert Irving and Hank Saroyan in the last few seasons starting with "It's Only Pretendo". Though I did like how the title cards had different music each episode.

I felt the same way about the 80s Chipmunks cartoon: the first five seasons with Ruby-Spears had fitting music scored by Dean Elliott, but when they switched to Fred Wolf and later DiC, Chuck-Rucker Productions did the music - not that their other work is bad (hey, who doesn't remember all the various show-stopping numbers from Dexter's Lab?), it just didn't fit with the Chipmunks; like Drtooth said about Inspector Gadget, it just had that really flat 90s synth sound to it, which added to the cheapness of the show by that point (really, the DiC episodes have pretty minimalistic animation compared to the RS episodes).

John Williams- "Star Wars" and many 70's disaster movies: "Poseidon Adventure". "Earthquake", "Towering Inferno", etc.

Interesting trivia about John Williams: although he composed the now-familiar score for the first two HOME ALONE movies, he wasn't the original choice. Bruce Broughton was slated to score the movie, but at that time he was too busy scoring THE RESCUERS DOWN UNDER (which has some really good music), so they brought in John Williams, thinking he wouldn't do it, but he did.

On the subject of Bruce Broughton, there's a distinct sound to his scores, almost like he's able to really juggle the balance of cinematic and quirkiness (the Homeward Bound movies, for example).

That said, I find that the score is a key factor that can make or break a movie for me. Case in point: the original ICE AGE movie was a quirky movie, and David Newman can it a fitting, quirky score, and it was a good movie. But for the sequels, they brought in John Powell instead (since he seems to be Blue Sky's go-to composing for scoring), and he gave them a really overly cinematic score that didn't fit with the movies' atmosphere, which is one of the reasons why I don't really like the sequels. I mean, when I think of ICE AGE, I like to think of that guitar-rich ditty that was used as the theme for the first movie, not that big orchestrated "DUN-DUN DUN-DUN DUN-DUN-DUUUUUUUUUUN!"

 

[Drtooth]

I felt the same way about the 80s Chipmunks cartoon: the first five seasons with Ruby-Spears had fitting music scored by Dean Elliott, but when they switched to Fred Wolf and later DiC, Chuck-Rucker Productions did the music - not that their other work is bad (hey, who doesn't remember all the various show-stopping numbers from Dexter's Lab?), it just didn't fit with the Chipmunks; like Drtooth said about Inspector Gadget, it just had that really flat 90s synth sound to it, which added to the cheapness of the show by that point (really, the DiC episodes have pretty minimalistic animation compared to the RS episodes).

The problem is that big orchestras are expensive. Warner Bros Animation had one heck of a budget to have fully orchestrated music for the likes of Tiny Toons and Batman TAS. I even recalled hearing a commentary on a Batman TAS DVD about how some I can't recall who missed that luxury. And these were episode specific scores too. Most cartoons had a soundtrack system, especially in the 80's, but even beyond that to this day. So synth music in a bank system is far cheaper than orchestrated full episodes. But then there were those shows that had an orchestrated bank system where they would reuse the same music but it was high quality stuff. Look at any 80's- 90's Disney cartoon.

Now, when early 80's cartoons had to use synth, they were using one of those state of the art at the time deals. The music certainly didn't sound like it was trying to be what it wasn't, and it was electric an artificial enough to have a unique sound. Then the 90's roll around and things sounded just enough like an instrument to not be electronic sounding, yet not enough to sound convincing. Again, state of the art at the time. Synthetic music has gotten much more convincing lately that you almost couldn't tell. It's not 100% perfect, but far more organic sounding than 1990's synth.

 

[mr3urious]

On the subject of Bruce Broughton, there's a distinct sound to his scores, almost like he's able to really juggle the balance of cinematic and quirkiness (the Homeward Bound movies, for example).

Don't forget Dinosaurs!

The problem is that big orchestras are expensive. Warner Bros Animation had one heck of a budget to have fully orchestrated music for the likes of Tiny Toons and Batman TAS. I even recalled hearing a commentary on a Batman TAS DVD about how some I can't recall who missed that luxury. And these were episode specific scores too. Most cartoons had a soundtrack system, especially in the 80's, but even beyond that to this day. So synth music in a bank system is far cheaper than orchestrated full episodes.

Which is why I'm impressed that Ego Plum managed to convince the higher-ups at Nick to use a 40-piece orchestra when composing Harvey Beaks.

But then there were those shows that had an orchestrated bank system where they would reuse the same music but it was high quality stuff. Look at any 80's- 90's Disney cartoon.

Same goes for Muppet Babies, along with Hasbro's shows in the '80s. Though I think TaleSpin used quite a bit of synth -- just listen to the strings in some of the tracks whenever you watch a few episodes.

Now, when early 80's cartoons had to use synth, they were using one of those state of the art at the time deals. The music certainly didn't sound like it was trying to be what it wasn't, and it was electric an artificial enough to have a unique sound. Then the 90's roll around and things sounded just enough like an instrument to not be electronic sounding, yet not enough to sound convincing. Again, state of the art at the time. Synthetic music has gotten much more convincing lately that you almost couldn't tell. It's not 100% perfect, but far more organic sounding than 1990's synth.

William Kevin Anderson once said at a panel that he uses a virtual orchestra when composing MLP, but with a variety of instrument libraries to keep things sounding convincing. It sure fools me most of the time.

 

[Drtooth]

Technology marches on. It's just that odd inbetween of heavy synth and convincing artificial synth that's the awkward period. It's strange that the two extremes are more effective than the middle.

Seems that now we've got two paths when it comes to cartoon background music. Either orchestrated (artificially or otherwise) or using a more offbeat, I don't want to say techno but similar sound. I'm very impressed by Adventure Time's off beat sound to go with it's off beat personality. Regular Show manages to go with a retro 80's sound that uses heavy synth (most likely a recreated sound). Steven Universe tends to be all over the place, and that's what makes the show sound great. I'd say out of the three examples, that one has the best music.

 

[Eyeball]

Hmmm id definitely have some kind of death/black metal esque theme going on, sadly no ones gives such a great music genre a chance in the mainstream light.

 

[C to the J]

I always find certain instruments to be very interesting, like the synthesizer, the xylophone, and this one panflute you'd hear in an educational show like this... http://www.televisiontunes.com/Eyewitness.html

So if I had a show, I would include these instruments.

 

[D'Snowth]

Getting back to ranting about 90s synth music, while SEINFELD has one of the most iconic theme songs ever, the series' music scoring is otherwise rather annoying - it very much has a computerized/MIDI sound to it, and I hate MIDI.

Ironically, the German dub of HOGAN'S HEROES replaces all of its music with MIDI versions of it, for some reason.

 

[mr3urious]

Even though it's '90s synth-sounding as all get-out, I admit to liking Adventures of Sonic's BGM, more so than SatAM's. It most likely uses preset patches from a Korg M1 digital synth rather than that PC game MIDI soundtrack sound. Take a listen to the "Da Voice" patch @ 13:30 and don't tell me you can't hear that silly theme mostly associated with Scratch & Grounder.