TRANSFORMERS THE MUSIC PAGE 1
Music Index
ROBERT J. WALSH
Let's start with the original background music (bgm) for the first three seasons of Transformers. This was composed by Robert J. Walsh (Rob Walsh). Recently I had the lucky chance to make a small chat with mr. Walsh on the phone. He was very kind to offer some of his time to give me a lot of information on his work and to answer some of the questions that I was curious about for years now. I hope I didn't make any mistakes in the writings below as I was writing and talking trough the phone.
On the recent version of this page I also listed composer Johnny Douglas as producer of the bgm's. He gets the credits of the first season , but according to mr. Walsh this is wrong info as he composed ALL of the Transformers music himself, except for the main theme. This was kind of a surprise for me and I promised to take away Douglas's picture (it's still here though, shhh). Robert J. Walsh only met Johnny Douglas once when he scored My little Pony the Movie. Mr. Douglas produced some songs for that show and the theme. Johnny Douglas was a nice guy and great musician ,but for Transformers, it's all Walsh.
Listen to a sample here
And another one
A big thanks to Eric Williams for sending us three homemade rips of background music of the G1 Transformers background music. He actually managed to make complete themes, by cutting up various pieces of music. There is no dialogue, although you can hear some sound effects. Great stuff though! Listen to it here. Let's hope that someday the actual recording will be released.
Let's hope this great score will someday get a cd release. It might be one of the most requested pieces of music that is still unavailable.
Region 1 dvd player owners take note; the background music (and soundeffects) are recorded in a way that you can listen to them "out of phase" (I'm a-technical so don't ask me to explain). When you listen to them with a headphone and you don't push the headphone button quite in, the voices are completely gone! So you can listen to the background music of your favourite Transformers cartoons. I've only found out this to be working with the Transformers and G.I.Joe DVD boxes by Rhino, region 1. And it doesnt work with normal stereo equipment, just the headphones (at least where I'm sitting here)
Like this
At the end of the seventies Robert J. Walsh became a musical director at Warner brothers for three years where he did tv series and movies (Looney tunes; Daffy Duck Movie Fantastic Island), after that he did a show for Hanna Barbera. In 1983 he made two filmscores that were released on lp by Varese Sarabande records; Young Warriors and Revenge of the ninja (Ninja 2).
 The Young Warriors soundtrack (1983). This is a typically eighties rock/synthesizers score for probably a very bad movie. And considering it was a bad movie, this is a fine score (track 3 is very good). Not always as melodic as his cartoon music , but it's cool. The lp has a very fine sharp sound to it, one for the audiophiles. |
 The revenge of the ninja soundtrack (1983). This is very very hard to find and the one copy I did find costed about $90. I don't have it myself yet so I can't tell what's on it. Recently the movie was released on DVD in the US however, so you can hear it there. |
I did ask Mr. Walsh if
scores like these would ever get a cd release, but he
wasn't that interested in those at the moment, they were
"too old and boring".
From 1983 to 1990 he worked for Marvel where he produced
the music for all of their shows. Examples are;
Transformers , G.I.Joe , Robotix , Bigfoot and the muscle
machines , Jem , Spiderman, X-Men, Defenders of the Earth,
Jem, Robotix, Big Foot, Solarman, Fraggle Rock,
Inhumanoids, Dungeons and Dragons, My Little Pony, Muppet
Babies, etc. Kind of like every show I ever watched as a
kid.
 Robotix was a 60 minute movie separated into small parts for broadcast. Except for an original library score , some G.I.Joe music also slipped into the story. It is available on DVD in the UK now. |
 Bigfoot and the muscle machines. Unbelievable that a cartoon like this had it's own unique library music with it's own melodies and themes. That's not something they do that much anymore , as you could expect, it has a country and western flavour to the music. |
 G.I.Joe the movie which didn't have an original score like Transformers the Movie had (more on that below) , but it was tracked with the tv series library. More G.I.Joe here. |
 The Jem Rhino video series volume 1. All Jem cartoons have been reissues on DVD sets by Rhino at the moment. A song from Jem, which I suspect is written by mr Walsh. |
As I hadn't seen an episode of Jem since 1986 I recently
bought one of the new Rhino VHS tapes to fresh up my
memory. Actually this show was a lot better than I
remembered and a lot of detail went into the music ,
since the show was all about the music.
Jem was a 65 show series that was about the rivalery
between two pop groups Jem and the Holograms (With a
little help from Synergy) and the Misfits. The show was
very colourful and had many songs in each episode. These
songs were also used on cassettes that went with the Jem
toys , an eighties version of the Barbie doll. Walsh made
the background score for this series and produced a lot
of songs , as did Anne bryant and Ford Kinder (see below).
Also check out this
excellent site to find and hear everything you need to
know about Jem.
At this moment Rhino is issuing all the JEM cartoons on
complete season box sets in the USA (Region 1).
l haven't seen Dungeons and dragons since 1986 or so, and
I can't remember much about the music. People who do are
very fond of it though. this
page has some soundsamples. Four
discs of Dungeons and dragons cartoons have been released
in the UK (region 2) in 2004! Look on this site to
find more information on the music produced for Muppet
babies.
MUPPET BABIES , ROCKET TO THE STARS LP (Not available on
cd)
MUPPET BABIES was a weekly cartoon series around 1986 and
it was about the baby versions of the Muppets. This album
is a story with dialogue from the muppet babies and has a
lot of songs that help the story go forward. Walsh wrote
the main title and the title song. Both of the melodies
have a lot in common and are fun to listen to , as is the
whole album. A lot of talented people worked on this
record, like the great voice actor Frank Welker Dr. Claw,
Megatron, Soundwave). Click here
for a picture of the back (my camera is pretty bad, sorry)
The theme for G.I.Joe was already written (more on that
below) . Walsh produced about five hours of background
score for this series. For Transformers he made about
three , but a lot of G.I.Joe music crossed over to
Transformers (and other series). Most well known of these
to fans is the "Generic rock theme" The piece
of music that popped in everytime someone turned on a
radio.
Personally I love his music
for Transformers and G.I.Joe. Especially season 2 has a
very oriental sound to it and reminds me a lot of the
Film music of Miklos Rozsa and even more of Bernard
Herrmann. It's a varied listen and there's so much.
For season 3 some new music was released and a more
synthesizer sound was introduced , replacing the more
orchestral sound.
All the music to all of these series is laying in the
vaults at Screenmusic,
Robert J. Walsh's studio. He told me that he's busy
polishing up the masters for the last year and a half and
is busy digitally remastering them. There are still some
matters to be solved before it gets released though, but
he does know there is a large fan following for these
cartoons (so no need to send e-mails) and I think we will
eventually see a release of our favourite series music
relatively soon. A good thing is that the music itself
isn't lost or destroyed , something that occurs a lot.
I asked about the way it will be released , but this was
still uncertain. A lot of ideas were circling around. One
was making an album by album series of Marvel cd's , with
every series having one or more albums. There was also an
idea of adding dialogue, which would be horrible (do send
e-mails about this:)).
| Pryde of the X-men was made for the 1989 pilot movie and this cd was released in 2000 on Oglio records around the time when the X-men movie came out. Except for some rap songs the orchestral parts are credited to the Encino Light orchestra and the rock songs to the Rob Walsh Project (both by Walsh). Stan Lee provided some dialogue explaining the orgin of the comic book series especially for this cd release. |  Due to some legal problems the cd had to be recalled very soon , unfortunate as it was selling very well according to Mr. Walsh. because of this, the cd is very rare now. It is one of the projects that is being planned for a re-release though. Hear some soundsamples here. Look for it for the orchestral parts, which are very good (track 15 is one for the Transformers fans). Excellent magazine Film Score Monthly ran a review here. |
A year or 5 ago Walsh
produced music for Stan Lee animation. These existed of
about 70 five minute internet shows like The 7th Portal,
The Drifter and The Accuser.
ROBERT J. WALSH SAMPLER CD
This and the cd below are meant as a promotional tool in
the film industry. A composer can show his styles or what
he's capable of in this way. They can be plain cdr's ,
but they can also be real pressed cd's and sometimes a
limited amount are also sold to the general public. These
weren't and are quite hard to obtain.
The sampler cd exists of two 15 minute tracks and each
contain a lot of small snippets of all kinds of styles
that a directer could need for his movie. In this case I
think it is more meant for a tv production. Track 1
"Relationships" exists of jazzy music,
mysterious music, romantic music and even a "Smooth
operator" by Sade soundalike. Track 2 "Action"
is just what is says. A fun cd to listen to if you ask me.
Click here
for a scan of the cd itself.
KILLER ACTION
I'm not 100% sure what this cd was meant for, but I think
it is a part of the Hollywood music library, that
consists of cd's for all kinds of scoring needs. This one
is ofcourse orientated on the action. It has 43 tracks ,
but 10 different pieces of music. Each piece is then
divided in a long version, short version, shorter version
etc. The style itself reminded me a little of Rambo or U.S.Marshalls
by jerry Goldsmith, or maybe something from a modern
James Bond movie. Click here to
see the back and the tracklisting.
At this moment Mr. Walsh is very busy at his studio
recording music for the Hollywood music library, which
now contains about 150 to 200 cd's of stock music! And as
mentioned, he's busy polishing up the old Marvel music.
His latest film projects were large Movies of the week
for Paramount. (and I noticed someone recorded the
English voices for Final Fantasy at Screenmusic).
Here are two cd's which are produced by him
 Dimension of horror |
 Halloween greatest stories |
 Wedding collection volume 1 (2000) This cd has covers of typical wedding music played under the Encino Light orchestra name. |
 Fever Lake 1996 movie wherefor Robert J. Walsh provided a score. |
Look on Screenmusic to
see a list of more work .
(Update 2008) The Robert J Walsh website has been updated
with a brand new biography and a clear picture, a lot of
info there. Also soundsamples! Check it out here
Also
listed at Wikipedia now
Thanks to Mr. Walsh for providing me
with the correct info and interesting anecdotes!!