“Dot dweeeeeee dot dot dot dwee-dow!
Dot DWEEEEEEE dot dot dot dwee-dow!”
Without Doug Katsaros, it’s doubtful there would be such an iconic theme song for FOX’s The Tick, arguably one of the most superlative to come out of animated television.
But let’s not get ahead of ourselves.
Ben Edlund (The Tick animated & live action series, Firefly, Angel, Supernatural) created The Tick in 1986 as a mascot for a Boston area comic shop he often frequented, New England Comics. This bumbling hero — a nigh-invulnerable mental institution escapee — became instantly popular spawning a black and white series featuring Arthur (his socially-inept, moth suit-wearing Jewish vigilante sidekick), American Maid (shades of Wonder Woman and Captain America), Die Fledermaus (a wimpy Batman lampoon), Sewer Urchin (a hilarious Rain Man knockoff) as well as other interesting and intriguing characters.
Eight years after the eccentric figure debuted, FOX introduced him in a nifty Saturday morning cartoon series, written and co-produced by Edlund himself.
The original theme (and all the music from the cartoon) was composed, written, orchestrated and performed by Katsaros. I got the opportunity to riff with Doug recently in an exclusive phone interview.
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Michael: How did you become involved with Ben Edlund and The Tick?
Doug: I had done some work for a company called Sunbow (Sunbow Productions) for a project I believe was called Bucky O’Hare through Neal Adams, the great comic book artist for DC (Comics). He was in charge of the series. Through a representative for my company at the time I got the opportunity to audition for that along with music for Sgt. Savage among other things and The Tick came their way through Sunbow. They were working for FOX at the time and they had a competition for theme songs and I won the competition. It was interesting. I remember I did not want it to have any vocals on it … I wanted the lead theme to be done on a chorus of bass trombones. I thought, wouldn’t it be fun to have four bass trombones bellowing out this crazy theme song that I had in mind? I remember Ben Edlund and some heads of the FOX network were on a telephone call with me and I was trying to sing them the theme as I understood that it would be. And I was like “Dot dweeeeeee dot dot dot dwee-dow! Dot DWEEEEEEE dot dot dot dwee-dow!” And all the “dweeees” were pulling their trombone slides up. And Ben, I believe, said “I think it’s funny when you sing it. I think it’s even better when you sing it.” I said okay and went into the studio with a big band with the members of The Blues Brothers Band and members of the Saturday Night Live band … an astonishing small orchestra … and I called it “the big band gone bad.” I went in there and put down the track and just got in front of the microphone and just sang: “Dot dweeeeeee dot dot dot dwee-dow!” I think I sang it four times; instead of the four bass trombones, there are four “me”-s singing the theme song. That’s me singing!
Michael: You said this was a competition. There was obviously some type of direction on how to put together a theme for the show?
Doug: I was given the “bible” of the show which has all of the characters and their breakdowns and some random dialog from different episodes to get a flavor of the style. He was a super hero and he lives in a big city and the music should be dark, but bright … upbeat but pensive. Anyway, I just thought the swingin’ Gene Krupa kind of big band thing would cover this … and that’s what I went with. It was my first instinct.
Clacked by Michael Noble 
on Feb 08, 2012 @ 11:00 EST5EDT
Spoon!
I still yell “Spoon!” sometimes when I need a rallying cry. Most of the time, no one gets it.
I share your pain.
dwee-dow!