The Hollywood Reporter announces that Ted Nichols, conductor of Jonny Quest, Space Ghost, and Wacky Races, has passed away. He worked on various other cartoons for nearly a decade and had a long battle with Alzheimer’s.
According to The Hollywood Reporter, Nichols fought long and hard with Alzheimer’s and died January 9th in Hospice. He was with his daughter in Auburn, Washington.
The Hollywood Reporter reports that Nichols had worked for Hanna-Barbera Productions for 9 years (1963 to 1972) as the composer for the last eight years of his life. He worked with Hoyt Curtin (Top Cat, The Jetsons) before taking over for him. Nichols made the music for the second to last and last season of The Flintstones on ABC, as well as the 1966 feature The Man Called Flintstone. Nichols also worked on Scooby-Doo Where Are You! which premiered in 1969.
“Ted Nichols’ underscores [for Scooby-Doo] are what I consider to be a near perfect set of music for a cartoon,” Cade Utterback says in his comprehensive 2021 documentary about Hanna-Barbera music. “It’s perfect for the show it was in. You can’t tell me it doesn’t help set the mood.”
“There are a few tracks that run for a few minutes and have several sections. And the music editors knew this was a bonus as they mixed and matched parts from all the tracks to make a beautiful Frankenstein monster of a music bed in each episode.”
According to The Hollywood Reporter, Nichols’ played music all through all Scooby-Doo shows to 1985.
The Hollywood Reporter announces that Nichols was an only child born October 1928, he was born in Missoula, Montana where he started to play the violin at 10. He joined the US Navy where he joined a swing band and was commanding officer of the US Air Force bandsmen training school. He picked up various music degrees from Baylor University and Texas A&I, as well as taught in a public school. Nichols moved to California and conducted a band at Santa Ana Junior College and choiring with the Dapper Dans of Disneyland for a few years.
his survivors include his daughter, his son, David; grandkids Tawny, Kevin, Brian, Alex, Carson and Cammie; and six great-granddaughters, and to his wife Catherine from 2011 until her death in December 2020.