Cartoon Clash - Edition 1: The Early Cartoon Network Years

Welcome to my new series called ‘Cartoon Clash’ where I take two cartoon theme songs and analyzed them. I will judge the song on lyrical content, catchiness, memorize ability, and notability. The main job of the cartoon theme song is to get stuck in your head and provide an accurate job of describing the show musically.

Dexter’s Lab (1996-2003)

Memorize ability: Dexter’s Lab features a choir singing in the background, horns, and gives the feeling  of an evil science genius to it. It is an epic sounding song that never got stuck in my head personally. To me the show song doesn’t seem to be aiming for that angle. The visual presentation is pretty impressive too.

Lyrics: No lyrics in this song.

Catchiness: The song has some horns instrumentation in the middle of the song and choir in the beginning. The instrumentation went above and beyond in this category by adding those features. It creates these feeling of an evil scientist which in Dexter’s Lab case sounds perfect with this music. The interruption of DiDi ruining his plan in the middle of the song works perfectly.

Notability: It is pretty notable among early cartoon network fan circles. It is an original tune and has aged very well.

Overall score: (3.5/5)

Part 2 - The End Credits

The end credit song explains the characters on the  show, and general plot of the show. The lyrics do a great of explaining the concept of the show. Instrumentation wise it has an orchestra theme going on through the credits making it sound like it is part of a movie soundtrack.  The guy voice singing the song is great too he has this broadway sound to him.  I like it better than the opening theme. To quote the song itself ,"Things go boom" on that show a lot especially the end credit song.

Final score: (4/5)

The Power Puff Girls (1998-2005) 

Reboot: (2016)

Memorable: Sugar, Spice, and Everything nice. The formation of  the Power Puff Girls itself is pretty memorable even if you didn’t watch the show.   The narration is well done to understand the recipe on the first pass. 

Catchy: Not particularly catchy. It features this drum and bass soundtrack from when drum and bass was big in the late 90s and early 2000s.  Not a big fan of the drum and bass sound they went for. The horns in the song provide the heroic tone the show was going for.

Lyrics: The lyrics in the song describe how the girls are born even if chemical X sounds ridiculous. Professor Utonium? I never realize how nerdy this show is (no offense Dexter).  It also tells you who the main characters are in the show Blossom, Bubbles, and Buttercup and what their jobs are on the show.

Notability: As stated before the recipe is pretty famous among cartoon circles for this show but not actual song.

Original theme song overall score: (4/5)

Part 2 – The End Credits

The ending credit song on the other hand is fantastic. It is a pop rock song that describes the three superheroes on the show. It goes on to talk about the villains on the show too. The chorus is extremely deadly earworm that won’t leave my head as of writing these reviews. It was so bad that actor Christian Bale knows the chorus to the song when he did an interview for ABC news. Listen at your own risk.

“Fighting crime, trying to save the world
Here they come just in time,
The Power Puff Girls”

Final ending theme score: (5/5)

Enough Musical Analysis: Who won the battle?

Final Victor: The Power Puff Girls win this one. They won it by using introducing a recipe and describing the Power Puff Girls jobs. In addition after listening to the theme song a few times; I legitimately know who the characters are. The heroic tone works great too.  As written above I enjoy both of the end credit songs of the shows a lot more than the opening songs. Dexter's Lab for the impressive vocal work or the  Power Puff Girls for the catchy pop song ending credits. You choose. I’ll stick with The Power Puff Girls on that one since that damn chorus hasn’t left my head.

Let me know in the comments which one was better.