Big cheques, standing ovations, irate adults – there are surprising sides to composing a children’s TV theme tune. From Bluey to Byker Grove, the creators of the best reveal the secrets
How do you write TV theme music for children? Does it make you mega-rich? And does the tune itself eventually drive you (and parents everywhere) nuts?
We tracked down the creators of half-a-dozen of TV’s greatest children’s show themes in order to find out. As Bluey’s Joff Bush told us: “The key lesson is that if you’re going to write a theme tune, make sure you really like it because you’re going to hear it a helluva lot!”
From nostalgic cult classics to current hits, from cartoon animals to live-action school soaps, six composers confess the secrets of kids’ TV music …
Composer Julian Nott scores Peppa Pig, as well as Wallace & Gromit, Bing and Ben & Holly’s Little Kingdom.
It all started at the National Film and Television School’s animation department. Two fellow students became friends: Nick Park, who did Wallace & Gromit, and Mark Baker, who did Peppa Pig. They’ve been collaborators ever since.
Peppa was just another job that came along. I worked on the pilot episode for free as a favour. It wasn’t just the same theme tune as today, it was the same recording. We finally updated it last year but for two decades they used the demo version. It’s only 10 seconds long which is shorter than most title sequences. It was a challenge to write a short, sharp, catchy tune. It had to be fast and fun with a memorable melody. The gaps in it were exploited by Mark, who inserted oinking sound effects.
We classical musicians tend to laugh at pop writers for only knowing three chords but Peppa has two, which is probably a musical outrage. There was zero budget, so it’s all played on synthesisers and samplers. The instrumentation which became associated with Peppa – marimbas, timpani, glockenspiel, vibraphone – were only chosen because they were the most convincing samples you could get back then.
Peppa took over the world, so I hear my music all the time. I’m often in a cafe or airport and a child will be playing it on their iPad. I’m tempted to lean over and say: ‘I wrote that!’ but never have. There was a time when I couldn’t get on a train without hearing it. It’s a strange feeling. Kids watch their favourite shows on repeat, so it can drive parents mad. Toddlers work out how to switch on Peppa Pig and their parents get woken up at 6am by the theme music. It might be one of the most unpopular tunes ever written! But I’m very lucky that it’s given me financial security. Peppa Pig was like winning the lottery. It’s enabled me to sustain a career. It’s all upside and it’s marvellous.
Scott Gale wrote the theme song for NBC’s 1990s teen sitcom Saved By the Bell.
I was music coordinator on The Golden Girls. One Friday, the producer of this new teen comedy called and asked me to try out for the theme tune. My wife had left me that morning but I put down the phone, picked up my guitar and, bingo, it just poured out of me. It was the luckiest two minutes of my life. We recorded it over the weekend at my partner Rich Eames’s home studio.
On Monday morning, we handed in our cassette. Little did I know that executive producer Peter Engel had told all the other prospective composers not to include “saved by the bell” in the lyrics because he wasn’t sure the name would stick. But I never got that message, so the title appeared five times in mine. Peter later admitted he was glad I didn’t get his instructions.
Saved By the Bell was the first live-action Saturday morning kids’ show. Everything else was cartoons. I thought it’d be lucky to last seven episodes but it ran for four seasons. And the show, thank goodness, was heavy on music. We wrote it all. If there was a jukebox playing, we’d write the songs. The characters formed a rock group. We wrote what they played. There was something new every week.
Saved By the Bell was very good to me. I still get royalties from Spain, South Africa, everywhere. Those gigs are hard to get but it’s the gift that keeps on giving. I never tire of hearing it. I’ll chance across it while channel surfing and it whisks me back to those wild times. Nearly four decades later, I still get to talk about it. It’s nothing but wonderful.
Martin Brammer is the frontman of pop trio the Kane Gang, whose track became the basis of the theme tune to Byker Grove.