When you’re a kid you really don’t wonder about how the theme song to one of your favorite cartoons was written. When you’re an adult, well, you still don’t really wonder. But what if someone told you that the theme song to [easyazon_link identifier=”B014C20UU6″ locale=”US” tag=”tvovermind00a-20″]Ducktales[/easyazon_link] took less than an hour to create?
You might say “yeah okay” but then you really get to thinking about what it takes to write a song, then make sure that it sounds right, then do a rewrite since it’ll probably be necessary, and then go through the whole process again. That leaves you thinking that coming up with the idea for a song in about an hour is entirely feasible, but writing it and making it work would be way less so.
Well then this should strike you as interesting.
Mark Mueller is the guy that ended up writing the song in about 45 minutes, and if you can recall the theme song you know that there are a lot of “woohoo’s” throughout the entire piece. Those weren’t intentional if you can believe it, they were the product of Mueller realizing that he’d left a bunch of gaps in the main chorus of the song. He had to put something in so the quickly did what he could and this was the end result.
Mueller submitted this song and was paid a little over twelve hundred dollars for it, which isn’t much. But the catch was that he’d only get paid if the song aired. Little did he, or Disney, know that this song would go on to be a hit and the recurring theme song of the [easyazon_link identifier=”B014C20UU6″ locale=”US” tag=”tvovermind00a-20″]Ducktales[/easyazon_link] franchise. It became so popular in fact that to this day a lot of kids that were watching the cartoon from the time it was released until the time it ended can still hum or sing the entire tune. That’s how addictive the song was, that those of us now in our thirties and possibly forties can still remember it to this day.
It might have been a rather low-paying gig however if Mueller hadn’t been given the chance to collect on royalties, which pay him every time the song is used. Even better, the song has been modified just a bit for the upcoming Ducktales reboot but is still recognizably his song, so he’ll continue to get his royalties every time it’s on the air. The best part is that when it does come on, which is going to be very, very soon, the network will be running it for a 24-hour period, which means Mueller will be getting paid all day and all night.
Ducktales is set to be an entertaining cartoon for an entirely new generation of kids, and Mark Mueller has had a lot to do with that. If this new show is anything like the old one kids will be humming the tune for years to come, just like we did. Admit it, you can’t get this song out of your head once you hear it, and it makes you smile.
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