Let's face it, it's just a fact ^^.

If you have kids around you, you may have noticed the music embedded in their favorite cartoons. Maybe you didn't pay attention, or maybe you just ignored it as it's just cartoon music, or maybe just irritating music even.
So many kids (especially in asia) spend time watching hours of compilation of music, compilations of cartoons, with low content, just because the nurse doesn't care and feed them with 1 hour-2 hours packs of endless stupid cartoons and silly lullabies, on a tablet with compressed low level sound played on small speakers at best, if any....

Maybe some of you (yeah, the older ones) have vague memories of colorful melodies from your childhood when sitting in front of the screen, despite Alhzeimer's kickin in...But no, it wasn't a dream, you indeed DID get better stuff at the times.

So did i, so did we in France, up to the mid/end 80's, before it all began to go down.

From the Henry Mancini's theme for the Pink Panther, to the last shite songs for industrial cartoons, let's compare stuff and see the degradation.

Oh i must warn you : it's in French, but the auto translation Fr to Eng works quite ok, so you'll see how the guy breaks it on the piano, and feel the joy and anger of his.
He's of course a passionate pro, and although a bit technical, he really put stuff into light, most comically to me when he's genuinely upset, with reason ^^

Just skip the 4 mn intro where he's answering comments about his last episode.



The thing is, it's not just about French kids, it's also happening to the James Bond audience...
From John Barry to Billie Eilish, it's not getting better on the other side of the channel ^^

Simpler melodies, simpler audiences, simply getting more simpletons, simple.

Even though John Kricfalusi made a fall from grace with the #metoo story grooming an intern for years to become his young lover, I still love the Ren and Stimpy cartoons. PS: seperating an artist and his art etc. is a difficult issue I was not opening into.

R&S is not only for a young audience, also for adults/many layers. Especially the even more black humoured Adult Party Cartoon series and characters like George Liquor. Anyway: always loved the (often classical) music used in background, an online sleuth discovered all sources and is a good read if you also loved this cartoon. It includes many short stabs like drama links by Hubert Clifford or dramatic impact hits by Ivor Slaney used in scores (ha!) of Hollywood productions where the familiarity originates from.

https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/ar ... xual-abuse
https://renandstimpy.fandom.com/wiki/Li ... d_episodes
https://www.renandstimpymusic.com/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Liquor

John Bingham wrote: ↑Mon Aug 14, 2023 5:39 pm This one is great:

Ah, Adventure Time.
Yeah sure, fortunately there is still nice folk song around. It's peaceful with a melody.
But see how it's going ?
From the classical music borrowed for the early US cartoons, then the classical orchestrations, then the movie musicans 's orchestrations, then some single artist song, then guys with a home studio and samples and keyboards, to finally whoever with a crap karaoke mic recording with an asthma condition in a cupboard.

John Bingham wrote: ↑Mon Aug 14, 2023 5:39 pm This one is great:

Hahaha indeed, and was used for Adventure Time:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bqbMScsmntY

Also loved the Don Felder track Heavy Metal as used in South Park: https://youtu.be/RMiQSCaYANA
Rick and Morty have some great ending themes/songs as well on some episodes.

In the past Hollywood studios had their own orchestras, now it is just a composer in his studio but people like Hans Zimmer are great and many people will recognize his tunes without knowing his name: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hans_Zimmer

Musicians like Tom Holkenborg (Junkie XL) also are score composers nowadays: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_Holkenborg

And (unrelated) if you have never seen this episode: Donald Trump in the Fresh Prince of Bel Air: https://youtu.be/wZPrrLve2Eo