Ryan Leach : Music for Animation

This is part of a regular series of “Weekly Links” postings. On most Fridays I post links to stories and articles that I find interesting. Though I try to keep them mostly animation, music, or entertainment industry related I will also share the occasional link that I find useful or helpful in other ways. I hope you enjoy and please feel free to leave a comment about any of the links you’ve checked out.

Not a whole lot to report this week.

• I wrote a new article for audiotuts about Secondary Dominants and How to Use Them.
• “Fort Knox” is a very fun animated music video for the band Goldfish which I discover via cartoonbrew.
• Check out 9 Mind Mapping Tools for Mac. My current favorites NOT on that list (mostly like them cause they are free as opposed to $100+ like some of those) are Mind Meister and XMind.
• The Disney World Video Treasure Trove.

This is the 11th post in a series on Cartoon Theme Songs. The second Thursday of each month I examine a popular cartoon TV theme song and discuss what about it does and does not work.

The theme from the 1966 series Gigantor cracks me up. Just the name “Gigantor the Space Age Robot” is awesome.

There’s a general mix of positives and negatives:

• Of the whole piece, the opening is the best part, with men singing a deep “Gigaaantoor”. It’s really the only part of the theme that’s memorable, as the rest sort of turns into fluff.
• The use of all men singers is a good idea for expressing how large and masculine Gigantor is. The extremely deep bass is a nice deep sound, but it’s also a bit comical. I’m not familiar enough with the show to really know if it was meant to be funny or tough.
• The piece is pretty much all percussion and bass driven, with a little rhythm guitar and a flute that’s playing lines all over the background. The orchestration evokes a tribal setting, which is not really what I associate with a Space Age Robot. Perhaps electronic instruments are a cliché idea, but I still think they’d work.
• The lyrics are pretty weak. “Bigger than big, taller than tall.” Couldn’t we figure that out just by his name? I’d rather know about what kind’s of enemies he’s battling or if he’s got any personality quirks. Nothing very useful in the lyrics here.
• The rhythm that opens the theme is very remeniscent of George of the Jungle. I guess it’s the same era, but it’s still a bit suspect.

Overall the Gigantor theme is pretty silly (note: Gigantor theme) but it’s fun. I wouldn’t mark it as the top 10 best TV Themes of all time but it’s certainly not among the worst.

This is part of a regular series of “Weekly Links” postings. On most Fridays I post links to stories and articles that I find interesting. Though I try to keep them mostly animation, music, or entertainment industry related I will also share the occasional link that I find useful or helpful in other ways. I hope you enjoy and please feel free to leave a comment about any of the links you’ve checked out.

Wow, October already.. here’s some of the latest from the past week.

• This looks pretty good and all, but I’m not sure we really needed *another* Christmas Carol movie..
• Animating “Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs” w/ Mr. Bernstein
• Please make sure to vote for Maurine at funnyordie.com (I wrote the music for this quirky short)
• I really enjoyed this animated short Danger Planet (the main character sounds suspiciously like Shake..)
• This sounds like an awesome event, the Halloween Animated Spook-tacular! Animated Halloween themed cartoons screening at the Silent Movie Theater in Hollywood Oct 8th.
• And lastly, Cartoon Brew always find the best shorts. Check out episode 2 of “Lui Lui in Amelica”, it’s charming and fun.