Ryan Leach : Music for Animation

This is the 6th post in a series on Cartoon Theme Songs. Every other Thursday I examine a popular cartoon TV theme song and discuss what about it does and does not work.

The theme from the 1967 English adaptation of Speed Racer was written by Nobuyoshi Koshibe with lyrics by Peter Fernandez. Overall the theme is so-so; there are a couple of things that they do right but also some problems. We’ll start with some of the faults.

• The tune and band are grossly 1960s. Although they use the same “rock band with horns” type of ensemble as many of the Hanna Barbera themes, it falls too much into a kitschy rock beat which really dates the overall piece.
• Where’s the hook?! Not until :45 seconds in do we finally hear “Go Speed Racer”, the only catchy part of the whole theme. It really should have started the theme off, similar to Yogi Bear which hammered the hook home by opening and closing with it. If the first thing we heard was “Go Speed Racer!” we would be immediately pulled in and have something to latch onto. Instead they have essentially “buried the lead”, rather than starting off with a bang.
• Although the electric piano run in the beginning sounds cool at first, after 10 seconds it becomes really tiring.

They do a few things right, which are common among other successful themes:

• Vocals, and lyrics that tell you the basic idea of the story and characters.
• Multiple singers. Even when they sing in unison, having more than one singer gives you a sense of inclusion. It’s more inviting for you to sing along, rather than feel like you have to listen to a soloist.
• The horns are used only as filler between lyrics, never getting in the way.
• It’s fast and upbeat, making it fun.
• The “God Speed Racer” hook is great, as I already mentioned I wish they used it sooner!

Overall the theme from Speed Racer does not stand out to me as one of the greats. It’s OK, but they would really need to tone down the “60s beach party” groove and make better use of the catchphrase to make it stand out.

The problem with musical analysis is that all of the writer’s time is spent “describing” the piece of music and none of it actually “explains” anything. While it’s helpful to know that a composer went from a G chord to a Bbmaj7 chord, this information is simply a description of what’s happening. It would be like trying to learn architecture by saying “Well over here he used glass windows and over there is a 7 foot steel beam”. That’s not very helpful if I’m trying to understand how the architect came up with the building’s design.

What I want from an analysis of a piece of music is an understand of “why” they made the choices that they made, not just what those choices were. I want to understand what effect the Bbmaj7 chord had when it followed the G. Was it sad or lonely? Uplifting? Unexpected or surprising? Simply telling me what happens doesn’t give me any kind of useful information.

For many years I’ve been searching for some textbook or guide that tries to actually dig into the questions of “why” a composer makes the choices he makes, but nothing has ever turned up. I’m beginning to suspect that the reason is because no such volume exists. Noone really understands how to break a piece down and get meaning from it, or at least noone knows how to communicate that meaning if they’ve found it.

If I want to actually learn from the great masters I have to understand what they’re doing, but before I can do that I must learn how to understand. Knowing the vocabulary (major scale, diminished arpeggio, augmented 5th) and learning how to use those tools for my own music is just the first step, now I must figure out for myself how to take it to the next level in understanding another’s work.

I’m going to write a post called “How to Analyze a Cue”, in which I will break down all of the elements worth considering when trying to learn from a composer’s work. Up to this point I think one of my biggest problems has been a lack of structure and an over ambitious attempt to analyze cues too complex for my level of understanding. Rather than dive right in to the great chase scene from ET I first need to understand to the absolute core level how a simple two chord cue works. It will be a similar approach to how I learned to write music for TV, first by writing 5-15 second transitions before graduating to longer and more involved cues.

Somewhere on my Someday/Maybe list I would love to create a chord progression glossary, with an explanation of the emotional resonance of every kind of chord change. What happens when you go from I to IV-, or from iv to V? I imagine such a guide would be ridiculously useful from a film scoring point of view, allowing for some fantastic road maps. On the other hand such a system just might not work, because the nuances of orchestration, tempo, dynamics, etc. might have too much of a say and the same two chords could never have the same effect in any other context. I hope to find out one day.

This is the 5th post in a series on Cartoon Theme Songs. Every other Thursday I examine a popular cartoon TV theme song and discuss what about it does and does not work.

The opening music from Rugrats, “The Rugrats Theme” by Mark Mothersbaugh, is one of the few cartoon TV themes without lyrics or vocals that is still very effective. (OK, arguably the male “Bop bop” could be considered vocal, but the sound is used more like a synth than a voice)

One of the reasons the theme is so memorable is because the same melody is played over and over. The first phrase of the melody climbs up, while the second phrase climbs down in alternating ways. There are only 2 “climbs down”, for a total of four phrases, and the whole section repeats. What we get is an A B A C A B A C form. Notice how that A appears 4 times, forcing it to really drill into our heads.

Mothersbaugh keeps it interesting by having each repetition either feature a slightly different set of instruments on the melody, or a variation in the accompaniment. His pallet is made of percussive mallet instruments and synths which give the piece a quirky flavor. Each repetition adds a new instrument color, causing the piece to build in energy and interest.

The simple melody is hard to forget, but what makes the piece uniquely Rugrats is the use of toy and character sound effects. The various toys, laughter and falls serve as ambient energy but also as non-obvious percussion instruments. Even Dad snoring sounds rhythmic.

The last thing worth pointing out is that the piece has a very clear introduction and ending. Although they are very simple (the introduction is just a drum roll into a cymbal crash), they make the piece feel a lot more interesting than just having it start right into the melody and end at the end of a phrase. It’s these small touches that make a big difference in the perceived completeness of such a short theme. Without them we might feel like we’re just hearing a snippet of something that never got to really play out, but the intro and ending round everything out for us.

I can’t imagine hearing this theme and not picturing the characters from Rugrats immediately. The catchy theme is a perfect fit for the show and easily the most effective instrumental theme I’ve look at up to this point.

This is the 4th post in a series on Cartoon Theme Songs. Every other Thursday I examine a popular cartoon TV theme song and discuss what about it does and does not work.

The short but peppy theme from The Bullwinkle Show, written by Fred Steiner, may be zany and fun, but it doesn’t function very well as a cartoon theme

As I’ve mentioned before, I generally think that any cartoon theme song without vocals is instantly weaker than it could be. The vocals can do so much to tell us about the characters and story as well as provide the listener with catchy hooks and memorable phrases. Without vocals, a theme had better be pretty original and catchy if it’s going to stick and unfortunately The Bullwinkle Show theme just doesn’t cut it.

One of the oddest problems with the song is the poor mix. Perhaps the theme was recorded by a pair of mics in the middle of the room, but the percussion is so obnoxiously loud that’s it’s weird. Why didn’t anyone think to do a second take and move the mics? Or record the percussion separately? For a professional TV recording I would have expected better.

There is nothing necessarilly bad about the melody or orchestration of Steiner’s piece, but it lacks any kind of unique spin. Unless you were remarkably familiar with The Bullwinkle Show (hey, you never know), I don’t think there’s any way you could hear this after years of not seeing the show and remember at all what it was the theme from. Compare that to such opening lines as “Flinstones, meet the Flinstones”, “Meet George Jetson”, “Yogi Bear is smarter than the average bear”, or “Felix the Cat, the wonderful wonderful cat” and you can blatantly see why those themes conjur up a much more vivid image of the show they’re attached to.