Nichols had a long battle with Alzheimer’s and died Jan. 9 in hospice care in Auburn, Washington, his daughter, Karen Tolleshaug, told The Hollywood Reporter.
Nichols worked at Hanna-Barbera Productions from 1963-72, serving as the company’s musical director for the last eight years of his tenure. He started out working alongside another legendary H-B composer, Hoyt Curtin, before succeeding him and then being replaced by him.
Nichols composed the score for the sixth and final season (1965-66) of the original primetime run of The Flintstones on ABC as well as for the 1966 feature The Man Called Flintstone.
He is probably best known for his work on Scooby-Doo, Where Are You!, which premiered on CBS on Saturday mornings in September 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.”
Utterback notes that Nichols’ music would continue to be used on every Scooby-Doo series through 1985.
Source: www.hollywoodreporter.com
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