Post by wileyk209 on Sept 9, 2012 21:35:53 GMT -5
I'm surprised a post like this hasn't shown up here!
This regards the classic "Castle Thunder" sound(s) that was frequently associated with old movies and TV shows during thunderstorms...
www.hollywoodlostandfound.net/sound/castlethunder.html
www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q79HMmZ4qNc
Yep, this is the thunder many of us have heard millions of times on classic Scooby-Doo cartoons made prior to 1994. Now, I know many people do not like this sound effect nowadays due to it being too "old," but I think it still works well with Scooby-Doo. But Warner Bros. Animation doesn't seem to think so; in the made-for-video field I only heard it on "Scooby-Doo and the Legend of the Vampire" and "Scooby-Doo and the Monster of Mexico."
Plus, I have the feeling that former Warner Bros. Animation president Sander Schwartz himself hated that sound effect, too! This would explain why it wasn't used very much in newer Scooby-Doo productions, or it is poked at as an "ancient" cliche, during his time as president at Termite Terrace. By 2003, they wanted the Scooby-Doo cartoons to be more like "real life" and like a live-action production. I recall "Castle Thunder" being heard at the start of the "What's New Scooby-Doo" episode "The Vampire Strikes Back," but the sound quality was so horrible you could practically hear the vinyl record hiss in the background. So it abruptly switches to more realistic and LOUD thunder sounds for the rest of the episode, ones that hurt my poor little ears! (This video should give you an idea what the "newer" thunder sounds on "What's New Scooby-Doo", as well as "Scooby-Doo and the Goblin King"/"Samurai Sword" were like!)
"Shaggy and Scooby-Doo Get a Clue" used it A LOT, by comparison (on the episodes "Lightning Strikes Twice" and "Mystery of the Missing Mystery Solvers"), while on SD:MI, so far I only heard it at the very start of "Nightfright" (all other times there's thunder and lightning on the show, unlike WNSD, this show just uses those same stock thunder sounds I've heard on many movies and TV shows made since the 1990s!)
Outside of Scooby-Doo, Hanna-Barbera used it on many other cartoons before the early 1990s (like "The Flintstones," "Wacky Races," "Hong Kong Phooey," "The Smurfs," etc. etc. etc!) Disney also used it in many of their animated feature films as well (the last Disney movie to use Castle Thunder was "The Great Mouse Detective in 1986.) Many famous movies use the thunder as well, like the original "Frankenstein," "Citizen Kane," "The Sound of Music," "Young Frankenstein," "Airplane!," "Ghostbusters" and "Back to the Future."
Sound editor Mark Mangini had this to say (he was a sound editor for Hanna-Barbera in the early 1980s, and with the Disney connection he was also sound effect editor for "Aladdin" and "Beauty and the Beast"): "It's such a stupid thunder ... such a low fidelity recording. It was recorded on optical film with all the crackles and pops, and transferred to mag, and they've got it fifteen generations away - because they copied it from somebody else, who copied it from somebody else. So, before you know it, the band width is like one-thousand hertz to one-thousand and one hertz - one cycle of frequency response!"
(My video of the effects had my attempt at digitally cleaning them up; something Warner Bros. Animation failed to do, and even then, they never used Castle Thunder prior to that, not even in their hundreds of classic Looney Tunes shorts!)
Here is a montage I put up on my YouTube account showing some of its appearances in post-1990s animation, including the Scooby stuff.
Any comments would be greatly appreciated. It's probably the most second-recognized Hollywood sound effect behind the Wilhelm Scream (which was also used on SD:MI, but nothing else Scooby-related before that!)
This regards the classic "Castle Thunder" sound(s) that was frequently associated with old movies and TV shows during thunderstorms...
www.hollywoodlostandfound.net/sound/castlethunder.html
www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q79HMmZ4qNc
Yep, this is the thunder many of us have heard millions of times on classic Scooby-Doo cartoons made prior to 1994. Now, I know many people do not like this sound effect nowadays due to it being too "old," but I think it still works well with Scooby-Doo. But Warner Bros. Animation doesn't seem to think so; in the made-for-video field I only heard it on "Scooby-Doo and the Legend of the Vampire" and "Scooby-Doo and the Monster of Mexico."
Plus, I have the feeling that former Warner Bros. Animation president Sander Schwartz himself hated that sound effect, too! This would explain why it wasn't used very much in newer Scooby-Doo productions, or it is poked at as an "ancient" cliche, during his time as president at Termite Terrace. By 2003, they wanted the Scooby-Doo cartoons to be more like "real life" and like a live-action production. I recall "Castle Thunder" being heard at the start of the "What's New Scooby-Doo" episode "The Vampire Strikes Back," but the sound quality was so horrible you could practically hear the vinyl record hiss in the background. So it abruptly switches to more realistic and LOUD thunder sounds for the rest of the episode, ones that hurt my poor little ears! (This video should give you an idea what the "newer" thunder sounds on "What's New Scooby-Doo", as well as "Scooby-Doo and the Goblin King"/"Samurai Sword" were like!)
"Shaggy and Scooby-Doo Get a Clue" used it A LOT, by comparison (on the episodes "Lightning Strikes Twice" and "Mystery of the Missing Mystery Solvers"), while on SD:MI, so far I only heard it at the very start of "Nightfright" (all other times there's thunder and lightning on the show, unlike WNSD, this show just uses those same stock thunder sounds I've heard on many movies and TV shows made since the 1990s!)
Outside of Scooby-Doo, Hanna-Barbera used it on many other cartoons before the early 1990s (like "The Flintstones," "Wacky Races," "Hong Kong Phooey," "The Smurfs," etc. etc. etc!) Disney also used it in many of their animated feature films as well (the last Disney movie to use Castle Thunder was "The Great Mouse Detective in 1986.) Many famous movies use the thunder as well, like the original "Frankenstein," "Citizen Kane," "The Sound of Music," "Young Frankenstein," "Airplane!," "Ghostbusters" and "Back to the Future."
Sound editor Mark Mangini had this to say (he was a sound editor for Hanna-Barbera in the early 1980s, and with the Disney connection he was also sound effect editor for "Aladdin" and "Beauty and the Beast"): "It's such a stupid thunder ... such a low fidelity recording. It was recorded on optical film with all the crackles and pops, and transferred to mag, and they've got it fifteen generations away - because they copied it from somebody else, who copied it from somebody else. So, before you know it, the band width is like one-thousand hertz to one-thousand and one hertz - one cycle of frequency response!"
(My video of the effects had my attempt at digitally cleaning them up; something Warner Bros. Animation failed to do, and even then, they never used Castle Thunder prior to that, not even in their hundreds of classic Looney Tunes shorts!)
Here is a montage I put up on my YouTube account showing some of its appearances in post-1990s animation, including the Scooby stuff.
Any comments would be greatly appreciated. It's probably the most second-recognized Hollywood sound effect behind the Wilhelm Scream (which was also used on SD:MI, but nothing else Scooby-related before that!)
