Intrada announces one of the most requested soundtrack releases of all time, the '80s version of Disney's TV show DuckTales. Not only have fans pleaded for if for decades, but composer Ron Jones has always wished to showcase his colorful, dynamic and infectious music from the series. Intrada presents the music on a 2-CD set featuring over 100 minutes of episode scores and library tracks. A major ingredient of DuckTales’ success was its music, starting with a poppy title theme by Mark Mueller and arranged by Jones. While viewing DuckTales for the first time, Jones was struck by the show’s dramatic qualities and powerful sense of imagination. He determined he would score the action no differently than a live-action adventure, à la Indiana Jones, and treat the characters as fully realized individuals. “Huey, Dewey and Louie were kids, not ducks,” Jones reflected. “The story was their lives, their hopes and dreams, their feelings of adventure. Uncle Scrooge had an important role, of course, but it was all about the boys and how they took in the world. That was always in the front of my mind.” While the show embraced multiple genres, the music would be largely symphonic, supplemented with electronics as appropriate.
Of the more than 300 cues composed and recorded for DuckTales, Ron Jones retained nearly 80 in his personal archive, which forms the basis for this premiere album release of the series’ underscore. Fortunately, Jones preserved most of the show’s major themes and many of its most memorable set pieces. In assembling these cues, CD Producers Neil S. Bulk and John Takis have honored the spirit of the show by gathering them into suites inspired by the episodes for which they were originally written. Library cues that do not appear in these specific episodes have sometimes been integrated into the suites for musical flow. The intention is for each suite to function as a satisfying program while also evoking memories of the story to which it refers. The album features notes by Takis and cover art design by Stéphane Coëdel.
DuckTales was chiefly inspired by cartoonist and Disney Legend Carl Barks (1901–2000), whose tales of Donald Duck and friends in the pages of Walt Disney’s Comics and Stories and other titles had delighted readers since the years surrounding World War II—an era in which Donald Duck eclipsed even Mickey Mouse in popularity. DuckTales is set in the metropolis of Duckburg, where Scrooge McDuck defends his titanic money bin against rival miser Flintheart Glomgold, sorceress Magica de Spell and the criminal Beagle Boys. Of course, the show also retains a central place for precocious nephews Huey, Dewey and Louie.
