The Music of Hanna-Barbera's TV Years - In The Groove
Вставка
- Опубліковано 8 тра 2022
- Sure, you've heard the music... but have you heard their names?
Hoyt Curtin and Ted Nichols are two cool cats who just-so-happened to help make your childhood a little more awesome, and you probably never even knew it! They made the music that helped put Hanna-Barbera on the map when they ventured out into the world of the small screen in 1957.
Hello, and welcome to In The Groove! I'm Cade Utterback, and in this documentary, I take some time (well over an hour, in fact) to discuss and analyze the music of Hanna-Barbera Productions and their television cartoons.
Almost all of the music you'll hear in this documentary was composed by Hoyt Curtin or Ted Nichols, who were the two primary musical directors for Hanna-Barbera from 1957 to 1986. Our archives span from 1958-1973, so there was a whole lot of music to work with in making this documentary. I hope you enjoy the fruits of my labor after several months of production. I went through many hardships while making this - even the second half of my script got corrupted and I had to start from scratch - but I'm super happy with the overall product and I hope that you enjoy it!
In The Groove was made as part of my capstone class in media production while at Murray State University. (I hope I passed!)
UPDATE 2/17/2023: I'm happy to announce that this episode of "In The Groove" placed 1st in the Documentary Feature category (in the Student Documentary Competition) as part of the 2023 BEA Festival of Media Arts Awards! Thank you very much to the people at the BEA!
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
CREDITS (More available at the 1:03:47 mark):
Created, Written, and Directed by Cade Utterback, with Assistance from Dustin Wilcox.
Featuring the Works of Hoyt Curtin and Ted Nichols, Recorded 1958-1973.
Special Thanks to SpaceHunterM, Yowp, Dan Dzula, Jeffrey "Jeff" Pidgeon, Chris Haynes, Dustin Wilcox, Joe Bevilacqua, and plenty of others who have helped me (either directly or indirectly) with this documentary.
Copyright 2022 by CartoonCade Productions. All Rights Reserved. I own nothing but the namesake of "In The Groove" and its logo. All pre-existing audiovisual media used in the making of this documentary is the sole property of their respective owners... mostly Hanna-Barbera, or Warner Media, or Warner Bros. Discovery, or whatever they'll be called next week and the week after that.
![Flintstones Classic Underscore - Hoyt Curtin [Hanna-Barbera]](/img/n.gif)
UPDATE 7/26/2023: Incredible!! 🥺 Thank you all SO MUCH for getting this to 10,000 views! I never thought this would ever get that far, but I'm still getting comments on this constantly and it's such a joy to hear from all of you!! 🥰
Thank you so much for taking the time to check this out, and I hope I can continue to provide quality entertainment for a long time to come!
-Cade 😎
I am still loving this Emmy-worthy documentary after 1 year. And it always gets me singing:
"Make your hubby happy.
Keep your hubby happy.
When he's a little chubby,
He's a happy pappy.
With Rockenschpeel!"
Thank you so much! It didn't win an Emmy, but it did win an award at the 2023 BEA Awards. It won first place in one of the documentary categories - although to be fair, my entry was the only one that fit that category...
@@CartoonCade 😍still, a victory worth savoring!
Ted Nichols was the Minister of Music at Bethany Bible Church in Phoenix, AZ where I grew up. My Mom became the Children’s Education Minister and my best friend Nathan’s dad was the Pastor to Children. When Nathan and I found out Pastor Nichols wrote music for all those cartoons we freaked out and use to BOMBARD Pastor Nichols with questions and what it was like etc… I will always think of Pastor Ted as a wonderful man who always entertained Nathan and I on the piano and with his “professional “ stories. He was awesome! Such a beautiful man!!!
Aw, that's so sweet to hear!! I'm so glad that he was so wonderful to talk to and I'm glad you all got to talk with him about his past. I hope he was happy to talk about it!
@@CartoonCade ALWAYS! He was such a kind man! We used to be reminded of Walt Disney and all the documentaries we’d watch of him. Also, my grandmother was close friends with hi first wife! I don’t know much about that but I do know HE was a very generous and loving man! Thank you for such an intense documentary of him and his creative partners! AMAZING!
@@jeremyscott3645 Well thank you for the kind words! I guess in some ways it's a small world - I never actually expected to hear from anyone who knew him personally and talked with him! I'm glad that he was as kind as I imagined him being! Do you think he ever realized how beloved his works were? Even 50 to 60 years later, people are still clamoring to hear his music! Surely he'd be happy knowing that, right?
The musical underscore of "Top Cat" had a Gershwin-like quality to it.
As you mentioned, Top Cat had a HUGE following in Latin America, not only Mexico. I like to say Hanna Barbera reared me as much as my parents.
It seems longer than its actual run to all of us who grew with it.
And a big part of the success has to do with how appealing and refreshing the sound came across, compared to UPA, Freleng, Lantz Studios, even Warner and MGM shorts.
Funny: in LATAM, many of the "forgotten" series you mentioned, were extremely popular and syndicated for years.
I'm so glad to hear from someone that I'm assuming saw these shows in Latin America! I'm also glad that most of those shows that proved unpopular in the States did garner popularity there. Every show deserves the chance to shine, and looking back, a lot of people have began to appreciate them. Better late than never, I suppose.
@@CartoonCade Top Cat also ran for decades on BBC TV in Britain, though for many years it was known as The Boss Cat, with an amended opening title sequence. The title change was due to the existence of a tinned cat food called Top Cat. It's probably no coincidence that Top Cat's inspiration, Sergeant Bilko, also ran for much longer in the UK than it did in the USA.
@@ianfryer8386 Hey, that's pretty neat! I'd heard the story that Top Cat was renamed Boss Cat due to a cat food issue, but it's nice to have more confirmation! In fact, only not-too-long-ago did someone find a recording of it airing as Boss Cat, and they uploaded the main and end titles to UA-cam. Prior to that, evidence (especially evidence worthy of archival) was hard to come by.
@@CartoonCade Yes I saw that Boss Cat upload. In fact the opening credits still look shortened when Top Cat is shown today due to the Kellogs sponsor logo being snipped off. The Fredflix UA-cam channel has the full opening credits.
@@ianfryer8386 I believe I've seen those! I hope Top Cat gets a Blu-Ray release soon. It would be nice to see everything restored and maybe even those full opening credits. I saw part of a Jetsons restoration that had a sponsor tag in it, so it might be possible!
This is a well-done history of the Hanna-Barbera music. Actually, Hoyt Curtain had been composing for UPA, and did scores for many of the early MR. MAGOO cartoons. This seems to have brought him to the attention of Bill Hanna, who was largely involved with the music, since he supervised the music recording sessions. When the studio began strarted its association with Screen Gems, it seems that the Capital Hi-Q music cues were used since Screen Gems already had a licensing agreement with them. And you can hear some of the same cues in their TV Sitcoms from 1955 to 1961. In the case of the cartoons, they were probably put to the best use.
The Hanna-Barbera music library started in 1959 when they began producing the LOOPY de LOOP cartoons for Columbia. It was apparent that the switchover to their own music library started in 1960. And music was recorded at Capitol Records. I have several of the official releases, and some of the cues sound as if the original tapes may have been damaged with "wows," high frequency fluttering, and some amount muffling, which can be heard in some of the alternate takes used here. Many other examples here seem to be alternative takes that were not used and not released on the CDs. The "imitation" of "Rise and Shine" included here was one of the later themes used for the sitcom, "Hazel."
One of the things that Hanna-Barbera a standout for television was the use of sound in both the uses of character voices and most of all, the music. It was more "hip" and amusing, well-suited to cartoons compared to the Disney television shows which were built around their older product and a reflection of previous decades. Curtain's themes had a smart blend of Jazz, Pop Rock, and traditional Orchestral compositions. While I appreciate Curtain's work on TOP CAT, without a doubt, his work on JONNY QUEST far out distanced that in terms of Jazz Themes, the number and variations of the cues he came up with, many of which did not seem to be used. It is my conclusion that because so much effort and money had been devoted to these music cues, that the cues for MAGILLA GORILLA/PETER POTAMUS were done at a lower cost since there are fewer instruments used, and the miking of the instruments done in a way to compensate. To my ear, these sound cheap compared to the earlier work, and certainly were no audio match when placed next to the earlier cues.
While the change in composers story is interesting, the history of SCOOBY DOO is getting far off topic. We need more focus on Ted Nichols. How did the work of Nichols differ from Curtain's? Frankly there didn't seem to be that much difference since the full orchestra scores of the last of Curtain's work was carried over, and the contemporary flavor was continued. To be fair, once Hanna-Barbera became a large volume factory providing a lot of product for the networks, the grind was tremendous. So it is understandable that burn-out would set in. This was made more so when the networks would make approvals so late in the game, causing the need to work quickly.
Lastly, I was surprised that nothing was said about the music cues done for THE JETSONS, which were a far departure from what Curtain had done previously. This was probably one of the earliest attempts at electronic, or electronic-sounding music designed to sound futuristic. There seemed to be an innovative used of accordion, electronic keyboard, electric guitar and organ. These things were new in 1962 This creative departure from the standard use of full orchestral acoustical music was well worth mentioning since it also included a mixture of standard musical themes mixed with Jazz/Pop and Rock and Roll. Again, there cannot be said enough about the contributions of Hoyt Curtain who made the "atmosphere" of the classic Hanna-Barbera cartoons what they were.
Wow! Thank you for the critique! I do realize there are a few things this documentary didn't do.
For starters, small mistakes here and there were bound to happen - things like when exactly Hoyt first started recording for Hanna-Barbera, 1959 rather than 1960. Small mistakes are bound to happen in a documentary of this scale. It was made mostly by myself, after all.
In addition, the main reason that The Jetsons is not mentioned really at all is because of time constraints. I had nearly 1700 pieces of music to sift through, and despite the different and unique sound of those cues, I didn't feel like using them. This was due to the fact that they were the cues I had researched and listened to the least by the time I had started production, and I didn't want to showcase them if I wasn't confident in talking about them. Perhaps I can make a small sequel video in the future that addresses them! I just didn't want a section on The Jetsons to feel weaker or less professional than the others.
As for Ted Nichols, the biggest reason that he doesn't get more time is that there is not much available that he composed. Aside from the Scooby-Doo, Where Are You! cues and some from Space Ghost/The Herculoids/Frankenstein Jr. and the Impossibles (which I failed to include here), there just isn't much publicly available.
I also don't feel that the development of Scooby-Doo was off-topic, as it led to my discussion of Ted Nichols' composing efforts for the series, seeing as it was one of his biggest credits of all-time, and most will be able to tell just how different Ted's style was just by listening to the cues, compared to Hoyt's efforts a few years later.
I'm a bit interested in the music you have and your knowledge of the tape master issues that plague some of the cues that have found their way out there. Do you care to elaborate more on that? I'd be interested to see if you have any more cues that have not seen the light of day. And what do you mean by saying that the cues used were alternate takes? That's an interesting thing to consider, as there are alternate takes of many cues that exist in our archives, but not many of them were used here to my knowledge.
Again, thank you very much for the critique! I know it's not a perfect documentary, but it was my final college project so I did what I could with the time and resources that I could and I'm proud of the end result. I hope you enjoyed it!
Thank you for the comment. I suspect our UPA TV cartoons came damaged, as they had what I suspect were patched up incidental music with a LOT of white noise 😐 the quality compared to HB cartoons was like hell and heaven. It would really be interesting to have a documentary on Hoyt Curtin. I had the very misguided idea that he had composed all of the HB Golden Era scores, though... My apologies to Ted Nichols!
Excellent job! Hoyt Curtin music and Hanna-Barbera cartoons will live forever! Cheers!
Thank you! I hope they continue to live forever as well!
What’s the likelihood of us getting to see more official releases of this material? I loved these early underscores. I also loved the late 60’s and early 70’s scores. So little of this material has come out. We need more! Please.
I'd love to say there's a good likelihood, but until anyone finds any more material, nothing will be released since there won't be anything to release. I wish that someone would remaster all the music in the Hanna-Barbera archives, wherever that would be.
@@CartoonCade it seems the underscore music stops at Johnny Quest. With there lone exception of the Scooby Doo scores which have leaked on the internet. I’m curious where you located the stereo scores. There are many others you featured that haven’t seen official release. I love this stuff and would love to find it.
@@MrStereo10 The only officially released material was the Jonny Quest material, and small bits of some other shows. The Flintstones, Jetsons, and even Top Cat got a few pieces released back in the late 1990s. Everything else you're hearing here or can find on my Internet Archive page was donated to me by people who knew of my previous archival work.
Although brief, the horn flourishes on the end credits for the Jetson’s by Bud Brisbois on trumpet are forever etched in my memory. High, clear, and crisp. Awesome.
True! If I had a little more time to work on this project I definitely would have included a segment on The Jetsons.
Hanna/Barbera -- pure genius! The opening theme for "The Jetsons" has been a favourite of mine for decades. Likewise, for the opening theme for "Jonny Quest." Then, there's the opening theme for "The Flintstones." Many thanks, CartoonCade.
Thank you! I would have mentioned The Jetsons but there's a few reasons why I didn't, mostly due to time and not having skimmed their archive of music as much.
What a fun, affectionate and kind documentary. It hit so many nostalgia spots in my brain. I was born in 1966 so I went through the classic Saturday morning cartoon era and I also witnessed the birth of Cartoon Network (which was a huge thing back when it debuted). I love many cartoon shows and classic shorts: Tex Avery, Looney Tunes, Invader Zim, Rocky and Bullwinkle, The Simpsons. But Hanna Barbera, well, that's a phenomenon. "Scooby Doo, Where Are You?" alone is easily one of the biggest pop culture sensations ever made. Several generations grew up with it and loved its safe and cozy style and formula, and of course its wonderful underscores.
That 1968 song _Simon Says_ by the 1910 Fruitgum Company is *so* similar to the 1969 Scooby Doo theme. The TV song a total ripoff. I listened to the full tune of _Simon Says_ with vocals. Wow. Betcha those guys were peeved at Hanna Barbera. But I digress.
Cartoon underscores and theme tunes can sometimes be disposable fluff and they could also be memorable and exceptional jewels of music. I mean, if you ever really listen to the intro music for "The Jetsons", man, that piece is just a love letter to music in general. And it wails and swings fiercely. Hoyt Curtin was a wizard, no doubt about it.
Thanks for making a really informative and enjoyable film. The narration, writing, research, editing ... all nicely done. Plus, I appreciate the footage from the retro TV shows being kept in their original aspect ratio; so many UA-cam creators stretch old stuff out to fit the modern screen ... and things just look distorted. I love seeing stuff the way it was originally broadcast. Kudos for that.
Thank you so much for the kind words!! I'm glad that my comparison between the 1910 Fruitgum Co. and the Mook/Raleigh Scooby-Doo theme was understood by someone... and even agreeable to you!
I'm also very glad that you appreciate that I kept things at their proper aspect ratio. I dislike UA-cam content creators stretching their footage for no other reason than to fill the screen. Honestly, wanting to keep that ratio was part of what inspired the visual style I edit with - the feathered edges of the video along with a drop shadow and a blurred duplicate (or other background) behind it was and still is something that I'm proud of!
Thank you so much for taking time out of your day to watch my video and even leave a great comment. It's extremely appreciated! I hope you'll stick around for what I have next!
-Cade
@@CartoonCade how come Wacky Races was'nt on the list
@@PieFights Wasn't on the list of what, Michael? It was mentioned in this video.
You dropped this, king!
👑
Thank you for this great retrospective. As a musician, I appreciate Hoyt Curtin's massive contribution to animation. And I am one of those people who have listened to the Jonny Quest soundtrack countless times.
You're more than welcome! Glad there are others out there who appreciate his place in history!
I noticed clementine weaved into the scoob themes when I downloaded them recently. Awesome video, deserves to be more widely seen🙂thanks
Thank you so much! For not having made many videos like this before, I'm very proud of how it turned out. If I can muster the time and energy for more videos like it, then maybe it'll get more views than it has now. Still, thank you so much!!
@@CartoonCade I hope you can do more, it was very insightful, and an excellent production 👏
The music I've wanted for so long was Ted Nichols cues for Danger Island. All those great recycled cues used for Micro Adventures, The Arabian Knights, the Three Musketeers all on the Banana Splits Adventure Hour. Cartoon Network back in the 90s did a weekend where they played the entire "Danger Island" segments back to back as one long film. It's over 3 hours and I made sure I had my VCR on!
I hope someday all the H-B cues are released!!! I always love hearing the stories that everyone has about watching these shows and more and just loving them. I'm glad that people out there still have some love for these shows, some of which would otherwise be lost to time.
Grew,up loving the music to Space Ghost, the Herculoids, Birdman, the Galaxy,Trio, Moby Dick, Mightor, and the ,Fantastic 4.
Glad you did! Hopefully someday we'll have clean copies of the music in those shows!
I corresponded with Hoyt via Email shortly before his death, being very complimentary. He was gracious in his replies. Did you know he was one of two composers for Sandy Frank’s “Battle of the Planets”? I can tell the difference between Hoyt Curtain’s and Ted Nichols music, as the use different harmonies, and choose different instruments. I think you short changed Ted a little bit. Ted leaned into the genre of the particular cartoon, such as “Shazan” cribbing off of Rimsky-Korsakovs Shaharizade, or the bucket of spacey themes for Space Ghost and the Galaxy Trio, that spread into The Herculoids. Lots of Theramin usage, and instrument that Hoyt didn’t use, his cues from The New Adventures of Huck Finn, and the New Adventures of Gulliverr, bled a little into the first two seasons of Scooby Doo. Lots of great underscore.
Yeah, my apologies for kinda putting Ted Nichols to the side. Most of the reason was because the only clean Ted Nichols material we had and still have is his Scooby-Doo scores. But you're right - something like Scooby-Doo doesn't sound like Penelope Pitstop, so the genre of the cartoon did play a role in the music it had.
I just recently went down a youtube rabbit hole that eventually led me to the Ted Nichols Scooby Doo underscores posted to the Internet Archive. Just after finding those files the youtube algorithm led me to this video. It's only after watching this video and reading the comments I found out you were the one that posted those underscores. I can't thank you enough for doing that! Any clean underscore with the Ted Nichols era of Scooby Doo is pretty much the Holy Grail for fans of that music.
Great retrospective on Hoyt Curtin and Ted Nichols with their TV work at Hanna-Barbera. I admire your editing restraint because this video easily could have been double the size.
Thank you so much! I was very lucky to have gotten in contact with someone who had the music and they didn't mind me sharing it. And you're right, I really had to restrain myself while editing 😂 I watched it over and over again trying to find the right balance of what to and what not to include. So glad you liked it!
Awesome documentary! Really well researched and thoroughly enjoyable. If you want to know just how influential Hoyt Curtin was, just look at the Incredibles and its sequel.
Michael Giacchino was aping Curtin on the OST and the film itself is very much a love letter to superheroes, but also to Jonny Quest.
And speaking of Jonny Quest, I have an unofficial documentary that someone made about a decade ago and it was supposed to be a present for a Jonny Quest fan, but he also made it available on his blogspot, where I downloaded it from.
I'm ashamed to say that I haven't seen it yet, but I will sit down sometime and give it a proper watch. If you ever want me to send it to you, get in touch and I'll see how I can make that happen.
Cheers and keep it up with these documentaries!
Thank you so much for the kind words! I love The Incredibles, and despite Jonny Quest actually having a small cameo in the second movie, I never really put the connections together on that one! Makes a lot of sense though - for all the work Hoyt did, he sure went above and beyond often. Strutting his stuff for a studio like H-B, who often resorted to as many cost-saving measures as they could, was as smart of a move as he ever made, but it's like he said: he got to do any dang thing he wanted.
One of my favourite Hanna-Barbara themes is “Wheelie and the Chopper Bunch”, which Hoyt Curtain wrote and composed, I’m surprised it wasn’t mentioned
Sorry that I didn't mention that one! I considered making a big ol' list of every show that he worked on, but I just didn't have the time and decided to focus on what most people consider the heavy hitters. Maybe someday I'll give that one a mention!
From what I’ve read, JQ was intended to be an animated prime-time action show targeted for adults. It makes total sense that the soundtrack is a much more evolved piece reflective of the time. I think the JQ theme is one of the best show compositions. Second is perhaps the orchestration of Space Ghost.
The Jonny Quest music has really grown on me in the past 2 years since I released this video. I already liked it, but I've listened to it much more since then and I've got an insane appreciation for the orchestration and the fact that a television budget allowed for a soundtrack like that. Easily one of the best action/adventure soundtracks of all time.
Agreed. I was captivated by the theme and backing tracks as a kid when it first aired. The JQ theme is longer than most opening themes and the match to the opening sequence graphics makes quite an impression. The theme still is a piece worthy of a full length theatrical feature.
I was really moved by the obvious homage to JQ in the second Incredibles movie and its influence is also obvious in its scoring. What a shame the Curtin/Nichols team was never given the opportunity or challenge to score a full-length JQ theatrical release.
Thank you so much for this!❤
thank you so much for all this info on hoyt curtain! i've loved hanna barbera cartoons my entire life and grew up watching them. almost sixty years of devotion to animation of any style, i have a soft spot for top cat and hoyt's jazz style. i thought i was the only one!!!! keep up the great work!!!!!!
Thank you so much for the kind words! If you love Top Cat, you should check out my video on it!!
I totally loved this documentary thank you
Thank you very much! I'm glad you loved it.
Oh man, I wish you had the underscores to Ted Nichols' music from Huck Finn and the Banana Splits cartoons. He composed some great suspenseful music there too.
I wish I did, too! Some of those Huck Finn were used in Scooby-Doo, Where Are You! as well, and a lot of Ted's stuff is highly sought-after. Unfortunately, it's also extremely rare. I'd be surprised if it even existed in the H-B archives anymore.
I think that the Underscores to Ted Nichols's music to Huck Finn and The banana splits are pretty much locked in in the Warner Brothers music archives!
I'm a little sad that the Jetsons didn't get a mention, but still a fantastic video!
Thanks! Yeah, sorry for not including The Jetsons - I've brought this up a few times, but the 2 main reasons I did not discuss The Jetsons were that I spent the least amount of time analyzing the library of music for it and didn't want to present it without knowing much about it, and that I had some time constraints when making this one so I knew I'd have to cut a section. Luckily, an archive featuring unreleased cues from The Jetsons does exist!
Great, great documentary. Thank you so much.
Thank you! I'm so glad you enjoyed it!
Magnificent Job! Enjoyable, captivating, and a great learning experience. I’m looking forward to listening to the full cuts on the archive. THANK YOU!
Thank you so much for the kind words! I'm glad you enjoyed it!
This documentary is amazing. Great work !
Thank you so much!
Thank you.
No, thank YOU!
Beautifully done Cade! Thanks for creating this wonderful documentary. You hit it outta the park!
Thanks for the kind words, Mike! People like you who enjoy what I've made help keep me going!
I loved this. What a cavalCADE of musical memories. Anything Curtin or Nichols did was fantastic! I was hoping that the music of Frankenstein, Jr. & The Impossibles, Moby Dick and the Mighty Mightor, The Adventures of Gulliver, The Harlem Globetrotters, the cartoon shorts the Banana Splits used to show - The 3 Musketeers, The Arabian Nights, Danger Island would be shown. The savvy fan would recognize their music anywhere. Thanks for exposing me to some new info I'd not known before. Very well done, Cade!
Thanks David! Trust me, if I had access to that music it would have been shown here. Unfortunately, I don't know if anyone has copies of that stuff! It seems like a lot of the Ted Nichols era of music has gone unpreserved and likely only exists in the Hanna-Barbera archives. As for some of the other stuff, perhaps I'll try and cover it someday!
@@CartoonCade would I be out of line in telling you that "You're the Man!"
@@drcrumpler I don't think so! I appreciate the compliment!
Then shine on, you crazy diamond!!
@@drcrumpler Heck yeah! A little Pink Floyd reference is a great way to start my Monday.
I've known who Hoyt Curtin was for many years but I wasn't as familiar with Ted Nichols. I would see Hoyt's name in credits here and there over the years. I wasn't born until The Flintstones were almost over, but during the early 70s a local TV station played all the cartoons from the Huckleberry Hound, Yogi Bear, and Quick Draw McGraw shows after school. I was immediately hooked and fell in love with anything Hanna-Barbera. The King's Island theme park located about a couple hours from where I lived opened up with a Hanna-Barbera Land and H-B characters walking around the park. It was heaven for a little kid who was nuts for their shows like me. You can still see exactly what the park was like then on reruns of The Partridge Family and The Brady Bunch when they each shot an episode there. Years later there was a Hanna-Barbera show on ice that came to town and before the show started as the crowd was settling in they played nothing but theme songs from Hanna-Barbera shows and my friend and I had fun guessing each one. I've gone on to think of Hoyt as one of the greatest composers in TV history and he was truly a big part of my childhood along with the many great visual and voice artists that worked for Hanna-Barbera. I put him right up there with Bill and Joe, and Daws Butler and Don Messick as the guys who made H-B the success it was. Thanks for such an in-depth look at some under-sung artists.
Well I appreciate the thanks, but I should thank you for the kind words! I love hearing the stories about how much Hanna-Barbera means to people. Even though I'm a bit young, I've had my fair share of experiences with their properties, and although I never got to visit Hanna-Barbera Land or see their show on ice, it's great to know that people out there still haven't forgotten about the studio, especially now that they are merely a namesake for what was once an incredible powerhouse of a company. I'll always do what I can to honor the undersung artists of times gone by, and Hoyt and Ted are two people that I'd be happy to talk about with anyone. Thanks again!
AMAZING work, i can tell how passionate you are, really informative video that got me interested in alot of this music, nice work bro!
Thanks so much man! I put a whole heck of a lot into it! I'd love to tell more stories about things like that I'm interested in.
Ooh a new Hoyt Curtin documentary. Awesome. Love it.
Thank you! I hope you enjoy it! It took a lot of time to put together.
Absolutely incredible - both the tireless, exhaustive research, and top notch detective work, and even a fun, critically-sound listening party within! Really looking forward to any other cartoon history videos you might embark upon! It would be great to hear more about unseen Hanna Barbara, or other forgotten composers of cartoons (Winston Sharples, Sammy Timberg, Carl Stalling, Scott Bradley, etc.). Congrats on the genuinely impressive, informative, entertaining documentary!
Thank you so, so much for the kind words! It's so nice to see my hard work paying off. I absolutely adore the work of Carl Stalling and Scott Bradley, and doing videos on them has definitely crossed my mind... although they likely wouldn't be as long and in-depth; making this one took me about 3 to 4 months while attending my last semester of college. Now, I have a full-time job and even less time... but I want to make more content in general. Plus, it would be a great excuse to talk about The Carl Stalling Project CDs (and also Milt Franklyn and Bill Lava), and the Tom and Jerry and Tex Avery, Too! collection!
Amazing documentary! I've always loved the old hanna barbera music it's so iconic. Great video
Thank you so much! I agree, it really is iconic music. I hope that one day it becomes even more popular, and maybe these composers can receive the credit they're due.
The Flintstones cues you speculate are early passes at the theme song are actually part of a bigger batch of Flintstone cues Hoyt wrote that I've been intrigued by for a while that were used fairly often in H-B cartoons of the 60s (even showing up in "Yogi's Ark Lark" in the early 70s!) that seem to use a different ensemble than he usually used (lots of winds and trumpet).
Some of those tracks, like "Cue 15 (Take 2)" and "Cue 6 (Take 1)" (which was used often for characters floating in the air) are some of my favorites in the H-B cue library and I someday hope to find out what Flintstones thing were originally composed for, especially how some of them quote familiar quick bars of public domain melodies for a moment that feel like they were meant for a really specific gag or something.
Hey, that's pretty insightful! I had a feeling that he definitely had a different ensemble present to record those, and in the almost two years that it's been since I made this video, I've heard a lot more cues show up in more places than I originally expected. I guess they decided to try and make use of almost any one they had, huh? Do you have a quick example of those early Flintstones theme cues showing up somewhere? I don't doubt your information by any means, but I'd be extremely curious to see what other contexts they were used in! i know you mentioned Yogi's Ark Lark... any others you might be able to recall or point me to?
@@CartoonCade Here's a few examples off the top of my head (sorry for the long delay, by the way!):
- "Main Title, Take 11" was seldom used outside of the Flintstones, but is used in a scene in the Top Cat episode "Space Monkey", when we first see the space director and his assistant.
- This particular batch of tracks got a good working out in the Huck Hound cartoon "Cluck and Dagger", the first one in production to use Curtin underscores.
- "Cue 61, take 1", one of my favorite Curtin cues of them all, is heard at the beginning of the Hokey Wolf cartoon "A Star is Bored".
- "Cue 57, Take 3" is heard in the Yogi Birthday Party cartoon during the scene at "Fred Upstairs Dance Studio".
@@evanschad1006 Thank you! I'll have to check these out! I love finding these cues used in other works by them.
@@CartoonCade Anytime.
My ego tells me that I played a part in making this film happen. The “archive” reference from which the music is sourced is really just the Google Drive of Pixar artist Jeff Pidgeon, who compiled, created fake album covers for, and shared with me all these great compilations of original recordings. He’s the guy who gave them to Yowp in his blog, and a few years ago, I went straight to Jeff to see if I could get more. He put them on Google Drive for me and from there I shared them with anyone I could. Without that interaction, I’m not sure if you would have access to this music or if anyone else would. It’s nice to see it get some recognition and acclaim, as I think it’s some of the nicest music television ever saw (or, rather, heard.)
Well that solves part of the mystery! In a funny twist of fate, Jeff was who gave me the higher-quality Scooby-Doo recordings heard in this video and that I've archived at the Internet Archive! You don't suppose Jeff has any more of this stuff lying around, do you?
@@CartoonCade all the music he gave me were three packs of Flintstones, two packs of Jetsons, two packs of Top Cat, two packs of Yogi, and a ton of JQ and superhero stuff. scooby was there too. no Loopy de Loop (a shame, because those cues were my favorites.) also a bunch of theme songs from original recordings, some for variants that don't even exist online. there was one for an Atom Ant and Secret Squirrel show that used the latter's theme song but incorporated the former into it.
@@austinkelly7841 That just about sums up the stuff I have from those sets as well. Small world, huh?
@@CartoonCadeit's so small that, afaik, these are the recordings used on any official HB music release. of course, on the Rhino CD sets, they're cleaned up, de-hissed, etc. but this was the same material given to Earl Kress back when he was alive and assembling those for release.
@@austinkelly7841 I often wonder if we would have gotten more music if Earl hadn't passed so young. A lot of people credit him for much of the surviving archival material that we have regarding H-B.
What a superb presentation! Hope to see more............in the future.
Thank you! Here's hoping I can actually put out more content in the future!
WOWSERS!!!!!
YOU SIR, ARE AWESOME!
THIS IS AN AMAZING WORK YOU HAVE RESEARCHED, UNEARTHED COMPILED AND EDITED TOGETHER!
WOWSERS!
BROUGHT BACK TO LIFE!
THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU!
I don't think I've gotten a reaction like this before... thank you!
Very nicely done. Good research and presentation. I grew up with these shows and loved them. The music was always an integral part of the shows. All of them. I later became an animator, starting on HB shows but quickly moving to Disney in 1981 to work on their so called second golden age of animated features. It was at that time, around 1990, that the master tapes of these cues surfaced and it was a GOLD mine for we animators who grew up on the HB material. We quickly began cataloging the cues and placing them with specific themes and shows. We did this for a number of years. Ot was a great deal of fun. However, this presentation is really excellent and I thank you for taking the time to put it together. I only miss the cues from one of my personal favorite shows, The Jetsons, which seem to be missing from this collection. Still, very cool! ❤
That's incredible to hear, David! I've never heard from anyone who worked for Hanna-Barbera regarding this project. Thanks for shedding light on when these cues were initially rediscovered! Around 1990, huh? Neat! I'm glad that you all had just as much fun cataloguing them as I did listening through a lot of them for this video! I wish we could go through and digitize all cues from the master tapes, as the copies of cues I have came from some form of cassette tape source, which is less than ideal for quality.
While I did not touch on the cues for The Jetsons in this video (due to time constraints with this project), I do have a large batch of them available on the Internet Archive! I've uploaded all the cues that I have from H-B properties there, too - everything from Yogi Bear, The Flintstones, The Jetsons, Top Cat, Jonny Quest, and Scooby-Doo. Check this link if you'd like to check them out for yourself! While I'm sure there's so much more out there that we haven't had the ability to listen to, these uploads do contain a vast amount of music!
archive.org/details/@cartooncade
Thanks again!
Curtin was so amazing. Too amazing for Barbera, who kept listing him as anything but composer on many of their cartoons. The music was so much better than H&B animation, it helped make the shows. Try the Flintstones or Johnny Quest without the themes and scores.
I completely agree. It's rare for one person to have the ear and talent for writing the music he did. I think that he had well over a decade of golden tunes for the studio, just hit after hit after hit. And yes, I think it helped sell the shows even despite their limited animation.
This was a delight to watch. Thanks for putting this together!
Thank you so much! I'm glad you enjoyed it.
@@CartoonCade I recall Hoyt Curtin composed music for a Pac-Man cartoon series, which later became the basis for Namco's "Pac-Land", a game solely based on the Hanna-Barbera Cartoon, that when releasing the game to US Markets, the sprites to the Pac-Family were changed to fit it's cartoon origins even further, including exclusive sprites of Chomp-Chomp and Sour-Puss, both of which didn't show up in the Japanese releases. I know Pac-Man wasn't important to your video, but the Pac-Man cartoon was around in 1982, one year after the Smurfs was adapted by Hanna-Barbera. Besides, Pac-Land was used in Smash Bros, and people expected remixes of Pac-Land to show up, but didn't. Why? Because the music was created by Hoyt Curtin... although there was a music track in Pac'n Jump, where there's a Pac-Land themed skin that comes with a remix of the Going Home track.
@@robbiewalker2831 Hey, that's awesome! I didn't know that! I recently found out that Curtin also did some music for a Garbage Pail Kids cartoon... which I don't believe was produced by Hanna-Barbera.
I knew of Hoyt Curtin but still this was a great trip down memory lane. Now I never meet the man but later on I found out about him. Now I didn't grow up during the 60's or the 70's but the 80's was when I was born. Now I was born a month before the Smurfs debuted on television. I remember later on when I was a lot older or younger when the show was still on the air. Now for me Smurfs wasn't my introduction into Hanna Barbera or Hoyt but Ted Nichols for me. Yes I'm a HUGE fan of Scooby Doo! That's the one show and music that caught my eye. Now yes I didn't get to see the original Scooby Doo but the latter of the franchise but that doesn't mean I didn't see re-runs of the show. Now during the late 80's one of the major channels showed re-runs of The Flintstones and that's where I feel in love with it as well as the music. I remember when I saw a cassette of the Flintstones songs from the show and some of the underscore on it. I never did get to buy or have my parents buy it for me. I wanted it soooooooo bad but never did get it. It wasn't till of this year that finally bought it off eBay. You'd figure after all those years during the 90's I might would of tried and find it but I had forgotten all about it during my teen years. After so many years of watching these shows there were a few things I didn't know. I thank you for some newer information about the other shows and of Ted Nichols work too. Great work and hope to see more from you on other shows and maybe even more Hanna Barbera stuff.
Thank you so much for the kind words! I've had so much fun diving into Hoyt's and Ted's music over the past few years and I always feel like they don't get talked about enough in the Hanna-Barbera space, or even 20th century animation in general. I was born after Hoyt passed away, so I definitely never got to meet him, but his music still resonates with me and I think it holds up after 60+ years. I look forward to making more content in the future! If you liked this video, I made an even shorter version to celebrate Hoyt Curtin's 100th birthday last month! Again, thank you for the kind words! I'm working on some more content but juggling it with work is tough. Either way, this isn't the last you'll hear of me on UA-cam!
@@CartoonCade Yeah I too try and do videos for my channel and like you said it's hard to juggle work and trying to make videos. Cool! I'll have to check that one out. Thank you for your love of HB shows and music. Always great to meet another HB fan! You as well haven't heard the last from me either. Peace Out CartoonCade!
@@Grover1234 Thanks a lot man! Take it easy!
Pretty weird your channel hasn’t blown up yet. You got a subscriber in me. Im Romanian born in the early 90s. Grew up with their shows and was always oddly fascinated by their musical choices. Partly because its basically 60s jazz which sounded alien to my ears.
Really dug your video and all the info here must have taken you ages to gather and produce. Keep doing what you do!!🎉🎉
Well thank you so much! I'm working on making more content but it's competing with my full-time job so I can't exactly pump out new videos.. but maybe once I get a few more videos out there I'll blow up. Who knows? Either way, I'm glad you enjoyed the video and I'm glad that you like what I have to say and how I say it! Thank ya!
I have just bought the flintstones show soundtrack on cd for the second time, and cannot get enough. I need the Jetsons !!!
What do you mean you bought the soundtrack on CD? I don't think there's a Flintstones soundtrack CD.
@@CartoonCade Check out Stone Age Melodies that came out in 1994 :) Thanks for the video
@@maplejames6992 Oh, I know what you mean now! Sorry, I thought you meant a soundtrack like what came out for Jonny Quest.
Wow this was a really cool watch great work!
Stumbled here while looking through the archive after I found a upload of the scooby doo masters here
I bet you're a busy person but looking forward to what you do in the future would honestly love a follow up doc about you and the community's effort to find and archive this stuff
Thank you very much! As it turns out, I'm the person who uploaded the masters to the Internet Archive in the first place! I appreciate the kind words. One day I'll probably make a video telling the tale of how everything has unfolded so far.
16:22 Haha, yes, almost EVERYONE on the internet spells it wrong!
21:00 Interesting when you consider what happened with the whole Rabbit Rhapsody/Cat Concerto kerfuffle! Again, to do with music sounding similar.
25:04 Also, I've only just made the connection. You helped me locate this tune for a project I was doing. Thanks again!
What I find retroactively amusing, is watching early Snagglepuss, Yogi Bear etc. shorts and hearing the "Meet the Flintstones" theme cropping up! Because at that time, it was just another cue and fair game for all the characters.
39:17 Why was this music used on the DVD set? There's another, more familiar, tune (a better one in my opinion) that was used on only the one episode on the set.
42:00 Hey, maybe Barney Rubble inspired the name! He was always scatting. In fact, even Top Cat says it a few times.
47:00 Hey, that tune belongs to another HB dog character!
1:02:22 Well, I'm happy to say, I wasn't among those people! Interesting how 'gay' was replaced with 'great' at the end there.
I'm with you. I love all Hoyt's music, but Top Cat is the tops, even if only just!
16:22 You're the first person to actually notice my little tease about the Flintstones having a "T" in it! I'm surprised it took this long for someone to point it out, haha! As for your other timestamps, I do have some insight and thoughts:
21:00 True! I love "Rise and Shine" and the "Overture, Curtain, Lights" themes, but if this really was the reason, I find it hard to believe. You don't go through 2 seasons of each show before deciding to make a change like that! We'll likely never know the real reason for the changeover, sadly.
25:04 Glad I could help! When going through the archives, this tune stuck with me - I even made it the "theme" to the "CartoonCade" series of videos I've done, but I'm sure you noticed that when you watched my Top Cat video earlier!
39:17 Truthfully, this track was not on the clip I used for editing. It came from the Dan Dzula collection of Scooby-Doo and Penelope Pitstop cues that I had. I thought that it sounded clean and it was the theme I was more familiar with, so I used it in editing. I'm aware that there was another theme. In short, that clip and its audio were separate and I didn't use anything from a DVD. Thanks for pointing this out, though - I enjoy giving behind-the-scenes tidbits!
42:00 I noticed this as well! The first line we ever hear from Top Cat is a bit of scatting that sounds similar to "Scooby Dooby Doo Doo, la de dah de dah dah", or something like that.
47:00 I wonder if this was just coincidence!
1:02:22 I'm glad you knew of Hoyt prior to this video! Yeah, I don't remember if it was in the original clip uploaded by Merill Markoe, but I think there's a Hoyt Curtin interview out there in which he mentions the change in lyrics due to time period differences. These days, it's definitely more noticeable!
Thank you again for commenting! It warms my heart to see people invested in something I spent a long time working on! ...And between you and me, Hoyt's Top Cat music will always be the tops!
Fantastic documentary! I think I'm your newest biggest fan! If you're ever up in Canada, don't crash your car or else I might randomly find you in a field and go all Kathy Bates on you (reference to movie/book Misery, which is probably an outdated reference that a young fella like you might not get.) I also want to thank you for making the files to many of these overtures and cues available on the Internet Archive. It's been a dream of mine to hear these without the sound effects, voice work for 30+ years, and I'm grateful to have the chance to hear them now.
I learned a lot from this documentary and was completely captivated. It was interesting learning more about Hoyt and Ted. Great job!
Anyway, I hope you got an A++ on your capstone project and I'm excited to watch whatever you put out next!
I've seen Misery, so I'll be careful if I'm ever in Canada, haha! I'm glad you enjoyed the documentary and I'm very glad that you're enjoying the files that have been uploaded to the Internet Archive! My mission has been accomplished by knowing that you enjoy it!
As for what I'm putting out next, it's hard to say... I've got a full-time job now so finding the time to work on other projects has been tough. Either way, I'm glad that you'll be following what I put out next! Thank you!
Honestly, this Hass to be one of the best videos I’ve ever seen in my life.
Well thank you very much!
@@CartoonCade you’re welcome.
I haven't forgotten Hoyt Curtin>
I'm happy to hear it! Keep his legacy alive!
I may be in a class by myself, but when it comes to the music scores from Hanna Barbera, my all time favorite animated series is the SuperFriends!! I have watched that series religiously as a kid and even to this day. I have even written a pair of books called The Ultimate SuperFriends Companion. Both volumes are available on Amazon. In my books, I have personally stated that I wish that there could be a CD set of not only the various theme scores of the SuperFriends throughout their nine seasons, but also the wealth of background music (or stock music) in all of those seasons. As a kid, it annoyed me that a lot of the music from the SuperFriends was also shared on Scooby Doo, and other Super Hero shows by Hanna Barbera like Dynomutt and the 1981 Space Ghost and Herculoids episodes that were part of the 1981 Space Stars series.
I know that the SuperFriends music still exists because I've heard some those scores play on Cartoon Network promos like Wonder Woman and Aquaman being rescued from the Legion of Doom by the Powerpuff Girls.
I know I would pay good money for a SuperFriends soundtrack. I know Hoyt Curtin scored the SuperFriends themes, but what about the other music? Inquiring mind wants to know.
This was a great video. Thanks for it. 👍👍
Hey, thanks for writing! Honestly, Hoyt's SuperFriends music really is overlooked - the only stuff I've ever heard released from it was one of the theme songs in its entirety. Maybe one day the people who own the HB music library will wise up and release what they have. Until then, all we can do is hope... and maybe reach out - if only we knew who to reach out to!
William Hanna and Joseph Barbara both were a huge influence on me as both an artist and as a animation filmmaker
That's awesome!!
Such a well researched and interesting video thank you!! definitely agree with your opinion about TopCat, its music is my favourite work by Hoyt too! I actually found this video by trying to find the instrumentals from the show😂 its a shame it wasn't a hit, i personally think it's one of the best HB shows.
Thank you so much for the kind words! I can't get enough of the Top Cat underscore, it's a masterpiece! And you're right, I wish it was a hit, too. It's severely underrated. I'm glad you enjoyed the video! 😊
@@CartoonCade no problem!! And thank you so so so much for the archive link. I'll be staying tuned for any more videos u decide to make in the future :))
@@Lavellette Thank you so much! I'm definitely hoping to make more videos, but finding the time is the hard part. 😅 Still, should I make more in the future I'm happy to know that someone would be willing to watch them!
23:14 - 23:23 As cool and smooth as butter on ice
NOBODY'S BETTER THAN HOYT CURTAIN 🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟BTW, that limited animation is PHENOMENAL!! Those up-close-and-personal characters is what gives them personality and warmth. ❤❤❤❤❤❤ I think characters can get lost in too much animation!
I love their limited animation too! Many have tried to minic it, but most who do crash and burn.
@@CartoonCade DEFINITELY!! Thank you so much for sharing these AWESOME videos 🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟
@@PJBovio Thanks for the kind words! It's my pleasure!
I enjoyed this, being a fan of both Hoyt Curtin and Ted Nichols. I was hoping The Banana Splits would be included. Their music cues are stuck in my head to this day...and am on the hunt for the Splits Underscores...hoping they resurface like the Scooby Doo cues did a few years back...any insight, or a re-edit to include the Splits would be appreciated...nice job!
Hi Brian! You know, it honestly didn't occur to me that I hadn't mentioned The Banana Splits until recently! Unfortunately I likely don't have the ability to re-edit the video, but who knows - maybe I'll make a video all about The Banana Splits someday! They were definitely one of the more interesting shows to come from the studio.
Huge fan of these shows and their music! SO appreciate you doing this project! Where did you find all of this music without sound effects, etc though??
I received it from a source who knew that I had archived other Hanna-Barbera materials, namely the Scooby-Doo music you can find all over UA-cam now.
Thanks for the post...very informative ! 10:06 I never knew that about Warner Bros. and their use of the Hi-Q catalogue. I'm so used to hearing that music with any and all H-B material, its hard for me to imagine it being used anywhere else. "Chase themes" overdubbed with sounds of running feet...classic H-B material ! 🤣🤣🤣🤣
Thanks for the kind words! Yeah, to my understanding most of the Hi-Q music was used in some of their earliest series, from "Ruff and Ready" up until "The Flintstones". You can still find some cues in those early shows here and there done by Hoyt during that time, but it wouldn't be until 1960 or so that his cues became the standard used in their productions going forward. Despite Hoyt blowing the stock cues out of the water I still enjoy some of them! A lot of the same library was used in Gumby shorts, too, and there's a channel here on UA-cam that posts a lot of the cues from those libraries that were used in Gumby shorts. Sorry for the long response but I'm glad you enjoyed the program!
@@CartoonCade Gumby ! I completely forgot about that show and the music that was used. 😃
@@IamP3ngu1n Yeah! Here's a playlist of some of the music used in the show. Some of this stuff comes from the Hi-Q libraries and other stock music libraries of the 50s. ua-cam.com/play/PLCaFqOc3oZBC71LTFdk__aS6wfYsJ9YQM.html
@@CartoonCade Thanks !
Hoyt Curtin could make some swingin' jazz! The Hot Lips Hanigan episode of The Flintstones, the underscores on Top Cat, the horns on The Jetsons and Jonny Quest.. Cool, man!
Yessir! He had some of the most swingin'-est beats on TV in the 1960s!
@@CartoonCadeOn the Hot Lips episode, I think Betty and Wilma are, like, strictly from Squaresville, ya dig?
Wow... what a fantastic effort and great production you put into this video. Thank you... This is rather strange as I was only talking to one of the creators who worked at Hanna Barbara in the 70s and 80s and was asking him particularly about the music production team who worked on Challenge of the Gobots. I really enjoyed this... are you considering other cartoon composers for documented videos... like Johnny Douglas, Robert J Walsh, Dale Schacker, Udi Harpez, Shuki Levy, Thomas Chase and Steve Rucker to name afew ?
Thank you Billy
Thank you so much Billy! Glad you enjoyed it! As of now I don't have much in mind for other composers, but give me some time and I may or may not make something featuring some of them some day! I hope that's not too disappointing!
@CartoonCade No that's fine. Forgive me and my excitement... This is a massive unknown area of music that hasn't had much research or evidence achieved... Your video filled in alot questions I had regarding Hanna Barbaras people behind music. This has taught me so much. Happy New year and please create content that follows your heart.
(I'm jusy an 80s kid that only fell into music 10 years ago and began looking at 80's cartoon background scores like M.A.S.K, Transformers the Movie, Starcom and so many more.
Look up Dale Schacker interview. He was a former Hanna Barbara composer before he went alone and worked on shows like Sabre Rider and Denver the last dinosaur (2x 10 minute interviews that were on the Saber Rider OSTs. He mentions an old Hanna Barbara rule that the music should be composed in away that anyone would know the show within 10 seconds of it being on TV. Thank you and take care.
@@williamledson Well I appreciate the care you have for the subject!! I'm definitely following my heart. Happy New Year to you as well!
Hoyt Curtin also wrote same of the music for Battle of the Planets.
That's true! I believe that soundtrack has been released, and if so, that makes it one of the only soundtracks to officially release with his work!
@@CartoonCade I have both soundtrack albums from different 2 different companies. Don’t forget they also have an official Jonny quest soundtrack which I have as well. LaLa records!!!!
Thanks so much for that. I reignited my obsession with the New Adventures of Jonny Quest theme, where Curtin is credited. It's absolutely my favorite animation theme song (even though I didn't watch much of the show). I'd love to know how Gary Lionelli adapted Martin's work to create that incredible intro. (High quality version here: ua-cam.com/video/8fon--ChMkg/v-deo.html)
Glad I could help!
Looks like Gary Lionelli is still composing (*hint hint*) but mostly documentaries and movies these days.
@@CartoonCade
do you plan to make curtin's scores from your archives available to the public? this is great stuff
Thanks for the compliment. As for releasing Curtin's scores, I already have! You can find several uploads on the Internet Archive at this link: archive.org/details/@cartooncade
Please note that those raw files have a lot more of a raw sound from whatever source they came from, so there's a lot of tape noise.
When Hannah says he and Joe were terminated from MGM in 1955 that’s not true in 1955. They were heads of the MGM cartoon department until 1957.
I agree. I think that as Hanna and Barbera got older, they might have forgotten some of the intricate details or misremembered them. This is likely no exception.
@@CartoonCade because from what I heard they did not leave MGM in 1955 they left to use later when they were heads of MGM cartoon department in 1957
@@Nick-ty9us I believe that's right. I'm pretty sure MGM shut down their animation department in 1957, forcing Bill and Joe out. They would be credited for the rest of the Tom and Jerry shorts until the last one in 1958, but by that time they had moved on to their TV unit.
@@CartoonCade they did get laid off. At MGM 1957.
Thank You for this! But one piece I really want to identify is this 'teen dance' incidental they used to simulate what actual teens were dancing to - I seem to recall one lyric when they had them being 'Hip-Hop - They Danced The Bop' or something like it. I can't ID it myself but, like if they had one of the animal characters happen on a bunch of teens, this would almost always be playing.
Thanks Rob! Unfortunately, off the top of my head, I can't picture the piece you're referring to. Do you have or can you find a clip of it online somewhere? I'm not sure if it's something that we would have in the archive.
@@CartoonCade I'm sorry. But like I said, it was a super-common piece for kids dancing. It was a comparitively slow piece - De-De - De-De-De-De; then looping. Ah, well. Thanks again.
@@shoresean1237 I'll keep an ear out to see if I can find what you're referring to. If you'd like to search the archives yourself, I have made all the files available at the Internet Archive!
@@CartoonCade Cool! Awhile back, a stand-up comedian on one of the cable channels did a routine wherein he played the 'other' Gilligan themes - aka the incidental music in scenes. Stuff like this is brilliant!
@@shoresean1237 That's great to hear!
This is such interesting in depth retrospective going over the musical scores of various Hanna Barbera show's also I had no idea that Ted Nichols was still alive after all those years of him composing music for Scooby-Doo where are you and all those other shows that he composed music for honestly while all of the different musical scores used for all of the earlier Hanna barabera shows are amazing and iconic in there own right I always feel like I appreciate the musical cues that Ted Nichols composed for Scooby-Doo where are you feels the most iconic and
Memorable considering how as a child I watched a lot of Scooby-Doo the musical score of where are you definitely grew on me and to this day I view it as one of the most iconic musical scores ever composed for a cartoon show to this day I still listen to it from time to time and boy does it take me back to the good old days of watching the oringal Scooby-Doo show as a child during it's syndication airings on channel's like boomerang or cartoon network even now currently the oringal series still airs on modern-day boomerang witch is amazing to me because honestly it brings back such nostalgic memory's and of course the masters that they use for those older episode's are the unrestored 1998 turner masters witch just adds to the overall nostalgic nature of the oringal series itself
Thanks for the kind words! I also love Ted Nichols' Scooby-Doo scores from that time. It's some of my favorite Hanna-Barbera music ever! And I hope that one day we can find a copy of his opening theme that isn't filled with sound effects - I'd love to hear the studio instrumental. I also caught Scooby-Doo on Cartoon Network and Boomerang and I have some nostalgia for it, too.
@@CartoonCade yeah since a full version of Larry Mark's version of the intro exists with just the music and vocals hopefully a version of season twos intro with just the vocals and music could fully be released so I could get to hear that version of the intro without the sound effects and hopefully a fully instramental version of Ted Nicholas version of theme song without the sound effects in it will come to ferritin because I'd love to hear that version of the theme song honestly it fits the overall tone and style of the show itself it truly goes to show you how masterfully talented he was and his legacy obviously lives on to this day
@@ritaandrunt5767 I agree, what I wouldn't give to explore the Hanna-Barbera archives...
@@CartoonCade yeah I'm sure that thiers also some unreleased scooby musical cues that have yet to be released
@@ritaandrunt5767 Oh, there definitely are. There are at least 3 or 4 major cues I can think of that haven't been found yet.
I always wanted the instrumental background themes from wacky races. Didn't find any on UA-cam, just the opening theme. Is there any place on the internet where I can find it?
As far as I'm aware, no music from Wacky Races has surfaced. If it does, I'm sure you'll hear of it! Sorry that I couldn't help.
@@CartoonCade Thank you for the reply! I wish a lot of success to your channel, you're doing a great work!
@@filipeaugustoferretti1338 Thank you very much! I appreciate it greatly!
Ted Nichols also created the original Star Trek theme!!😊😊
Now I know I’ve heard “Cue 410’Take 2” in an episode of Scooby Doo.
You definitely have! If I'm not mistaken, that cue was used in the Scooby-Doo, Where Are You! episode "That's Snow Ghost!".
Very well dpne
Thank you!
11:17 11:42 12:06 13:38 19:33 20:28 23:14 25:02 keep an ear out folks, those are exclusive never-heard-before Curtin tracks. Could you please tell me where can I find those exclusive tracks or if you plan to release the full Curtin findings somewhere in the future? Please, from a longtime H-B fan. Excellent documentary
All we need now is Ted Nichols full underscores (Herculoids, Fantastic four, Birdman & Galaxy trio, Wacky races, Penelope, Dick Dastardly, Danger island). Let's keep our hopes up for a future release! ☺
You're not the first to ask, so I already have an answer prepared!
You can find several uploads on the Internet Archive at this link: archive.org/details/@cartooncade
Please note that those raw files have a lot more of a raw sound from whatever source they came from, so there's a lot of tape noise.
@@CartoonCade I cannot thank you enough for this. Seriously. Downloaded them all and am jamming to this right now, you're amazing, thanks for sharing this treasures with us. However, I'm a bit disappointed by the lack of Ted Nichols action/adventure soundtracks, especially Herculoids, Birdman, Danger island, Shazzan, Wacky races, Dastardly and almost the entirety of his 1967-68 action underscores. Is it possible to unearth more of his material from the tapes? Are there any plans of digging for his soundtracks? It made me so happy to find the full Space Ghost underscore in one of the zip files, but you left me hungering for more, only a couple FF tracks and just one Herculoids...there's got to be more of his material somewhere. Do you think it could surface in the future?
Thanks again for such wonderful H-B soundtracks! ☺
@@lashistoriasdejorge379 I'd definitely love to find more Ted Nichols materials but that stuff is extremely hard to come by, and I've yet to find anyone who has that material. Something tells me that it might be a while before we get some of that rare music, or we might not ever get it. It's definitely beyond my control.
@@CartoonCade I tried to download the Archive links but they didn't work for me. Is there any chance you could send them by email?
@@ClassicAustralianTV Unfortunately, I don't have the ability to send them via email since the file sizes are too big. I think that part of the reason that the Internet Archive uploads might not have worked is due to them being in a different audio format. How did you go about downloading them from the page? Usually there's the option to download all items from an IA page using a downloader arrow icon to the right/bottom of the page. I really want to help you download them if you want them! You're not the first person to have issues downloading them.
Where can i hear the full songs of the first album in the video? Specially 325 take 2
I believe you'll find them here, at my Internet Archive link: archive.org/details/hannabarbera1960smusic
Which tool was used for noise reduction and speed correction for this? Thanks !
Hi there! I used Audacity and Adobe Audition interchangeably for this project.
Audacity and Audition's noise reduction systems work a slight bit differently and produce different sounds, so I went with whatever sounded right for each cue. Most of them went through Audacity as my deadline approached, though.
As for speed correction, that was done in Audacity only by using the "Change Speed" effect, as i noticed that the archive material was either slightly slower or slightly faster (I can't remember which) than restored remasters of some of the officially-released materials.
By using "Change Speed", the speed as well as pitch are altered accordingly, and at minimal levels of change, very few to no digital artifacts are introduced (in my experience anyway).
The only reason I placed that disclaimer at the beginning of the video was so in case people went and downloaded the archive materials for themselves, I did not wish to present a false sense for what the raw materials sounded like. Their condition was far poorer than my restoration attempts used in this video were.
Sorry for the long answer, but thank you for asking!
Top Cat... #1
You got any music cues from their Alice in Wonderland special from 1966?
I dont mean the songs, I mean the music cues. Theres one I've been searching for for a while, the music where they're escaping the castle.
It's been heard in a few Laurel & Hardy cartoons, as well as Yippee Yappee & Yahooey, Ricochet Rabbit, and Abbot & Costello.
Hi there! Unfortunately, I don't believe that I do. You're welcome to search my uploads at the Internet Archive though! Check some of the other comments for a link to them, as I don't have the link available off-hand this morning.
@@CartoonCade Oh, I've already done that, thank you.
I dont know who your sources are for getting these, but they got quite the collection.
I'm trying to develop a Hanna-Barbera style web series as a sort of tribute, so finding as much music for those would be a massive help.
If you ever get the opportunity to get more, I would recommend the Alice in Wonderland score, as well as Loopy de Loop. The ones from this collection seem to already be available elsewhere.
@@TaylorZanderFrancis Unfortunately, I doubt that new material will be found anytime soon. However, every time I've said that, there's been a major find, so who knows for sure?
Either way, I'll keep a look out!
I believe the music cues from the Hanna-Barbera version of Alice in wonderland are locked away in the Warner Brothers music archives!
@@nicholasmalone5943 This is very likely. What I wouldn't give to have a day or two in the archives myself!
At least, we still have Spike Brandt and Tony Cervone as successors to William Hanna and Joseph Barbera. For Hoyt Curtin, at least we have Steve Bernstein as one of his successors and Warner Bros. Animation absorbed Cartoon Network Studios. Another one of Hoyt's successors, Ron Jones is still around, same deal with John Debney, Thomas Chase Jones and Steve Rucker, Steve Bramson, Dan Savant, Carl Johnson, etc.!!!
You make a great point! The creators and musicians of today will continue to carry in the legacy left behind by Hoyt and H-B.
@@CartoonCade As well as Michael Mccuistion and Kristopher Carter!
I agree, Top Cat is an absolutely amazing collection of soundtracks. Especially his music cues, which are very derivative of Gershwin in structure, but tailored perfectly for the Top Cat series, and remain the heart of the series.
Scott Bradley’s work at MGM is even more amazing and sophisticated, creating truly magnificent scores for the Tom and Jerry series. His work was spotlighted by the BBC Proms and it’s an amazing and often hilarious performance of his collection.
ua-cam.com/video/seka_xO0UwI/v-deo.html
Absolutely! Curtin's Top Cat cues are some of my favorite pieces of television music ever composed, and I often wonder if Scott Bradley's work at MGM had any influence on Hoyt? While Bradley's work was timed to the action and tailored for each short compared to Curtin's cues being reused for certain situations, the jazz style and overall quality and "replayability" give us some wonderful music from the golden era of animation.
@@CartoonCade thanks again for such a wonderful video. I was familiar with the content, starting with the early needle-drop production music, but seeing all these musical scores pulled together in such a skillful documentary was great.
By the way, do you know where most of the music was recorded?
I was fascinated to learn that much of the music recorded in the 60s for Hitchcock, leave it to beaver and other series by David Kahn were actually.recorded in Germany.
@@clurkroberts2650 Woah, that's awesome! I had no idea they recorded a lot of that stuff in Germany. I believe a lot, if not all of the Hanna-Barbera soundtracks were recorded in Hollywood. However, I could be wrong, as I don't know nearly as much about the HB Studios inner-workings themselves. I just know that Hoyt opted to get the best studio session players from LA that he could and I don't know necessarily if they went to Germany for that.
was there ever an official release of Jonny Quest music?
There was! LaLaLand Records did a 2-CD release back in 2016.
What are the sources for the music used in this?
Archive material that I've uploaded on the Internet Archive. I don't have the links handy but if you go to the Internet Archive and search for "CartoonCade" you should find some of them! If you can find my user page on there I have even more uploads!
@@CartoonCade thanks
15:20 😲
15:27
Why no Jetsons?
I've mentioned this a few times in comments below, but I was on a strict timeline to produce this video and I did not have time to listen to the Jetsons soundtrack while in production of this video. I at least should have made mention of the intro theme, but I was more focused on highlighting The Flintstones, Top Cat, Jonny Quest, and Scooby-Doo. Out of all the music packs I had, the Jetsons was the one I knew the least about, and given the crunch time I had to work on this project as a whole, I decided to cut that one. It never even reached an editing stage.
@@CartoonCade Where does one get access to these packs, if one can? I'd love to hear it. I've been obsessing over the music from that show for the last few days. It's quite incredible. Imagining the future of music within the context of the time is an interesting concept. He must've thought Jazz would become more and more nuanced as history moved forward without giving much consideration to new musical styles which would be nearly impossible to imagine. I appreciate you taking the time to respond to me, especially in such detail. I loved the film! Even though it didn't have what I came for specifically, it gave me a lot of insight into the man who created the music and went into great detail about other cartoon soundtracks I love.
@@AdamThorton Check out my page on the Internet Archive if you'd like to download the music packs! archive.org/details/@cartooncade
@@CartoonCade Thank you SO much!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! This is amazing!!!
@@AdamThorton No problem! Enjoy and listen to your heart's content! I hope someday we can get cleaner copies and more music that still hasn't been found!
Jekies
I may get flack, but I've always preferred "Rise And Shine", the original intro to The Flintstones, more than the widely known "Meet The Flintstones."
So have I! I don't know if you'll get any flack, but you'll get a thumbs up from me at least!