Awesome Music / Western Animation

Why else do you think it was called Looney Tunes?

"And your second wish?"
"I have just the thing! I wish I had my own theme music!"

— Peter Griffin of Family Guy, being very, very meta

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Cartoons are notorious for having catchy theme songs, but some 'toons take it a step further.

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• Adventures of the Galaxy Rangers
• Adventure Time
• The Amazing World of Gumball
• Anastasia
• Animaniacs
• Avatar: The Last Airbender
  • The Legend of Korra
• The Backyardigans
• Barbie
• Batman
  • Batman: The Animated Series
  • Batman: The Brave and the Bold
  • The LEGO Batman Movie
• Big Mouth
• Bluey
• Bob's Burgers
• Bojack Horseman
• The Book of Life
• The Boondocks
• Cats Don't Dance
• Care Bears
• Central Park
• A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving
• Clarence
• Disney
  • 101 Dalmatian Street
  • Big Hero 6
  • Dinosaur
  • Frozen
    • Frozen II
  • Gravity Falls
  • The Hunchback of Notre Dame
  • The Lion King (1994)
  • The Little Mermaid (1989)
    • The Little Mermaid (1992)
  • Milo Murphy's Law
  • Moana
  • Paperman
  • Phineas and Ferb
  • Pixar
  • Pocahontas
  • The Rescuers
  • Star Wars Rebels
  • Star Wars: The Clone Wars
  • Wander over Yonder
• Family Guy
• Filly Funtasia
• Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends

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• Franklin
• Garfield and Friends
• Golden Films
• Grojband
• Hilda
• How to Train Your Dragon
• The Grim Adventures of Billy & Mandy
• Jem
• Jungledyret Hugo
• Justice League
• Kipo and the Age of Wonderbeasts
• Kung Fu Panda 2
  • Kung Fu Panda 3
• The Land Before Time
• The LEGO Movie
  • The LEGO Movie 2: The Second Part
• LoliRock
• Looney Tunes
• Masha and The Bear
• Mighty Magiswords
• My Gym Partner's a Monkey
• My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic
  • My Little Pony: Equestria Girls
• Ninjago
• Ōban Star-Racers
• Over the Garden Wall
• Over the Moon
• Peanuts
  • A Boy Named Charlie Brown
• Peg + Cat
• The Pirates! In an Adventure with Scientists!
• The Powerpuff Girls
• The Prince of Egypt
• Quest for Camelot
• The Raccoons
• Ready Jet Go!
• Regular Show
• The Road to El Dorado
• Roary the Racing Car
• Rick and Morty
• Samurai Jack
• Scary Godmother
• Shark Tale
• Shrek
  • Shrek 2
• The Simpsons
• Sinbad: Legend of the Seven Seas
• Sing
• Sintel
• South Park
• SpongeBob SquarePants
  • The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie
  • The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge on the Run

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• Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse
• Star vs. the Forces of Evil
• Steven Universe
• Superman: The Animated Series
• Spider-Man
• Teen Titans Go!
  • Teen Titans Go! To the Movies
• Thomas the Tank Engine
• Thundercats 1985
• Thundercats 2011
• Transformers
• Trollhunters
• Trolls
  • Trolls: World Tour
• Trollz
• VeggieTales
• Wakfu
• Wallykazam
• We Bare Bears
• The Wind in the Willows (1983)
• Winx Club
• X-Men: Evolution

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DreamWorks Animation

• The Prince of Egypt:
  • "When You Believe", the duet of Whitney Houston and Mariah Carey. Especially the multilanguage version, which features 27 versions of the song from around the world. It really shows how music is the universal language.
  • "Deliver us! / Send a shepherd to shepherd us / and deliver us / to the Promised Land!" And the Call-Back at the very, very end to Ofra Haza's One-Woman Wail of "Deliver us!". Ofra Haza singing the song in 18 languages, many of which were sung phonetically, is nothing short of impressive.
  • The song about the Plagues might be the best among an impressive list of awesome music. Yahweh is a scary, scary god. There's the part of that song with the Dark Reprise duet between Moses and Rameses. Definitely one of the all-time highlights of animated musicals. The fact that Ralph Fiennes actually sings Rameses' part is awesome! And the choir speaking for God. "I send the swarm/I send the horde/Thus saith the Lord!" The song is so good it actually makes you sympathize with the pharaoh. His brother has turned against him. Now an all-powerful deity rains fire down on his land. The pharaoh's response is to refuse surrender, no matter what the cost. Sure, it hurts everyone involved, but one cannot help but admit that Rameses has got style. Whatever your opinion of dubbing for films, "The Plagues" in Japanese is pretty awesome too. Especially Japanese!Rameses.
  • After the 'Through Heaven's Eyes' scene, when Moses walks out of his and Tzipporah's tent to go a-shepherding, the piece of music that accompanies "this is my home" in 'All I Ever Wanted' plays as he looks out at the landscape.
  • Instrumentally, Goodbye Brother is the most epic piece of music in ages from a movie. The ominous choir and orchestra combo at the beginning, the mournful cello solo, the single woman's voice — it has it all.
  • "The Mission", the score that plays right after the Burning Bush scene.
  • River Lullaby.
  • "Playing With the Big Boys Now" is a good song, sung by Steve Martin and Martin Short, who seem to have fun with it.
  • Another instrumental piece, the "Red Sea" is utterly beautiful...before becoming terrifying.
  • "Through Heaven's Eyes" is so often overlooked. It's encouraging and warm and beautiful, which is nice considering that after this particular song, the movie gets a bit darker...
  • Speaking of overlooked, there's "I Will Get There," the other end credits song.
  • Hans Zimmer's "Chariot Race" is a standout cue which annoyingly isn't on the soundtrack album but did get released on a Collector's Edition CD.

• Shrek 2:
  • The use of "Holding Out for a Hero" was particularly awesome, especially with the Mongo scene going on in the background. Moment of Awesome for the cast, definitely.
  • Antonio Banderas and Eddie Murphy's duet of "Livin' La Vida Loca" at the end.
  • "Fairytale"; no matter how irreverent and sarcastic the films may be, its beautiful Bootstrapped Theme still fits and captures the heart and soul of the story.
• Kung Fu Panda:
  • Oogway Ascends.
  • Tai Lung's Theme, which appears at various points throughout "Tai Lung Escapes", "The Bridge", and "Shifu vs. Tai Lung." (And all the cool kung fu fighting music!)

• Kung Fu Panda 2:
  • Po Finds the Truth, a beautiful and haunting piece in the same vein as "Oogway Ascends".
  • Zen Ball Master, an epic song for an epic battle.
  • Many are expanded or shrunk versions of pieces from the first OS. Though changes sometimes made them even better. "Ancient China / Story Of Shen", "Inner Peace", "My Fists Hunger For Justice", "Save Kung Fu" (epic-er version of the already epic music "Sacred Pool Of Tears"), among many others.
  • "Po Finds The Truth"! Everything in that track from 1:00 on is absolutely chilling!
    • The powerful overture starting at 3:55 as Po realizes that Fate balanced the scales after his loss with a life filled with new fathers, friends and soaring achievements he never dreamed he would gain.
    • The part that played during a certain tearjerking moment: Po's mother hiding baby Po in a radish crate and then drawing away the wolves and Shen.
  • If you prefer more action-y music, "Zen Ball Master" and "More Cannons!" are for you.
  • Of a completely different kind, but still awesome, here's "Gongmen Jail" or "Funky Kung Fu Panda"!
  • Also in the "funky" category is "Dumpling Warrior Remix", which plays over the end credits.
• Kung Fu Panda 3
  • Not surprisingly, "The Dragon Warrior" is one of the best tracks of them all.
  • "Jaded" is another great track.
• Chicken Run has a wonderful soundtrack. Particularly the Main Titles, Flip Flop and Fly, and every piece of music in the movie after and including Rocky, A Fake All Along. One would be surprised how awesome the soundtrack to a film about chickens can get.
• Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron is almost a soundtrack of awesome.
  • "You Can't Take Me" and the instrumental "Run Free".
  • The opening track, "Homeland", and its reprise, which becomes the ending song "I Will Always Return". Crosses Awesome Music with both Heartwarming and Tear Jerker.
  • Bryan Adams' Rhyming with Itself problems aside, "Get Off My Back" is badass.
  • The way "Sound the Bugle Now" segways from Tear Jerker to Heartwarming Awesomeness is beautiful.
• Madagascar had Will.I.Am's version of "I Like To Move It".
  • The opening theme "Zooster's Breakout" was incredible.
  • And of course, Hans Zimmer provided this Moment of Awesome for Vitaly: Light the Hoop on Fire!
  • As well as Chantel DuBois's Leitmotif, Game On.
  • The final battle combines Dubois and Vitaly's themes with epic chase music.
• The Road to El Dorado:
  • "The Trail We Blaze, the most beautiful song in the whole thing. That's no surprise, since it was written and sung by Sir Elton John.
  • "Tough to be a God", especially the climax.
  • "Save El Dorado".
  • "Someday Out of the Blue".
  • "Friends Never Say Goodbye", a heartwrenching ditty about a dissolving partnership, featuring, of all bands, the Backstreet Boys.
  • "Without Question", which has to rank as one of the most beautiful songs Sir Elton has ever written. The melody is absolutely gorgeous.
• Megamind Even when looking at the choice of regular music (all the way from AC/DC to Guns 'n' Roses) you can see they knew what they were doing. But the soundtrack itself is also made of awesomeness.
  • Ollo 'Evil Lair' and 'Black Mamba.' And if Rejection In the Rain doesn't at least make you sad... Well, it's a good soundtrack. It was made by Hans Zimmer and Lorne Balfe, for god's sake!
  • One word: "PRESENTATION!"

• Captain Underpants: The First Epic Movie has the Captain Underpants Theme, by none other than "Weird Al" Yankovic!

Don Bluth

• The Pebble and the Penguin - the lyrics to the songs may be insipid, but the tunes themselves are cool. In fact, the Villain Love Song, "Don't Make Me Laugh", is often considered the best part of the movie.
• An American Tail has several, though the best come from that or Fievel Goes West.
  • "Somewhere Out There"; it doesn't matter which version.
  • "Dreams to Dream". There is an "official" version, but the movie one hits much harder.
  • The Girl You Left Behind or A Duo for much awesomeness.
• Most if not all of the music from Titan A.E.. Not just the songs in the movie ("Over My Head", "Cosmic Castaway", "It's My Turn to Fly", all awesome); the score of the movie, composed by Graeme Revell. In particular, the music playing during the scenes near the death of Earth and the birth of Planet Bob, which underscore the scenes perfectly.
  • And for those who want to hear the most awesome music ever, here (but beware the spoilers that piece of music will bring).
• "Yer Beautiful, Baby" from Don Bluth's Thumbelina. Yeah, yeah, the movie's a shallow Disney rip-off and it reeks of sweetness, but godammit if that opening bass line isn't awesome. Then the vocals kick in...
  • It may be a blatant rip-off of "A Whole New World" from Aladdin, but "Let Me Be Your Wings."
• Jerry Goldsmith's brilliant score to The Secret of NIMH, especially the cue that plays during the film's climax.
• Bartok the Magnificent had loads of upbeat, fun music. Highlights include the title song, A Possible Hero, and Someone's in My House.
• Rock-A-Doodle's songs may be dorky, but Norway's Woolseyism makes the songs really worth watching the film for.

Hanna-Barbera

• Studio composer Hoyt Curtin and his contributions to the various Hanna-Barbera shows' soundtracks deserves a special mention.

• Magilla Gorilla: The show's theme song is a classic. Even The Simpsons and Animaniacs have referenced it!
• The Atom Ant Show: The show's theme song is narrated by Ted Cassidy (Lurch from "The Addams Family"). ("Up and at 'em, it's Atom Ant!")

Warner Bros. Animation

• Scooby-Doo! and the Legend of the Vampire:
  • "Getaway Yeah", a killer rock song that perfectly complements the chase scene.
  • All of the Hex Girls songs are pretty good, easy to see why they're so popular both in-universe and with fans of the franchise.
• The second and third intros for Static Shock use very catchy hip hop beats and lyrics.
• Teen Titans:
  • When there's trouble, you know who to call...
  • When the Titans make a comeback during the Big Badass Battle Sequence in the penultimate season 5 episode "Titans Together", a badass orchestral remix of the main theme song plays, slower-paced and instrumental-only.
  • Everything from "Aftershock Part 2". Seriously. Just... just listen to it. There's a lot of religious imagery in this episode, and the music at several points makes use of pipe organs and even Gregorian chanting at one point (fitting, given that the episode is the end of an adaptation to a story called "The Judas Contract"). It's quite a departure from the usual musical cues even for finale battles.
  • There's a gorgeous bit of piano music during the scene in "How Long Is Forever?" where Nightwing calls the Titans on their communicators, and it seems like all three of them are unable to come to his aid. It's just heartbreaking.
  • Terra's theme (especially the rendition that plays during her run through the obstacle course) is pretty darn awesome.

• Teen Titans Go!!
  • The remixed version of the old show's theme song worked great for the new theme song.
  • It may have not been written for the show, but hearing Beast Boy singing "Fade Away" to Terra was one of the show's best moments.
  • The parody of the old Titans theme song, in the Dodgeball episode. Robin actually likes to sing the old song in the shower.
  • "Mean What You Say" proves how well Tara Strong sings, and is a fun parody of Schoolhouse Rock!.

• The main title from Superman: Doomsday.
• What's Opera, Doc?.
• "We're Tiny, We're Toony, We're all a little Loony!" The Around The World version of the Tiny Toons theme takes the greatness of the original and makes it multilingual.

• Loonatics Unleashed's first season intro was epic.
• The Looney Tunes Show has given us "Parade Float", a rock song about Daffy's parade float. And as an added bonus, it's performed by Jess Harnell!

• This list isn't complete without "Powerhouse", the "assembly line" music from the classic Looney Tunes shorts. Bonus points for Rush doing their own rendition of it as part of their 1978 instrumental "La Villa Strangiato". Awesome on top of awesome, especially when heard live.
• The intro theme for Tom and Jerry Tales is pretty darn catchy. It's fun and frentic - the way the cat and mouse duo should be.
• The Iron Giant, by far the greatest movie Warner Bros. Animation has ever made, has a great soundtrack.
  • One of the best songs is The Last Giant Piece. It accompanies a Tear Jerker of the joyful kind, and it is awesome!
  • The "Fix It" song plays whenever he uses his homing device to put himself back together. It's very cute and memorable, and gets a Triumphant Reprise at the end of the movie that never fails to make you smile.
• The LEGO Movie:
  • The movie's Signature Song "Everything is Awesome!" is often cited as such in reviews.
  • Even the Double Dare fanfare makes an appearance. Hell, let's just say the entire soundtrack and leave it there.

• ¡Mucha Lucha! has its theme song, "Mucha Lucha! Mucha Lucha!"

Nickelodeon

• Invader Zim:
  • The background music for Zim and Dib's titanic, solar system-spanning conflict in "Battle of the Planets".
  • "Ultra Peepi" theme from Hamstergeddon is an Awesome techno track. Pity it only lasted about 40 seconds.
  • The all kinds of awesome theme song.
  • The "Music" of Funny that is the Doom Song.

• Danny Phantom:
  • One particular score during "Fanning the Flames". When Danny is flying Sam towards the Monster of the Week, the series plays a relaxing rendition of the theme's song. It makes the scene all the more poignant and remains one of the most convincing moments of the Danny/Sam pairing.
  • The scene in" My Brother's Keeper". After so much doubt and misery, Danny is shown flying happily as that particular rendition plays as Jazz comes to terms with knowing her brother is a hero.
  • The various heroic (and villainous) renditions of the main theme are all amazing! Just watch any scene with Vlad being especially villainous.
  • "RemEmber." The full version in particular, which we never actually hear in the show; it's a dark song that seems to be about how Ember died, which was apparently due to killing herself after discovering her boyfriend was only using her for sex. Because this is a kids' show.
• Ren & Stimpy:
  • "Happy Happy Joy Joy" is a note perfect parody of banal, repetitive children's songs, sung in a spot on imitation of Burl Ives' voice, complete with quotes from The Big Country.^note  The real Ives was invited to perform the song himself, and though he was interested, he was prevented from participating due to a schedule conflict.
  • The geniunely stirring anthem of the Royal Canadian Kilted Yaksmen. In German it's even better. God, that harmony!

• Kablam! has many.
  • The awesome ska opening.
  • And the first ending theme. Listen to the full version (on Retrojunk).
  • That doesn't mean the second end title was bad. It was awesome!
  • In fact, all of Henry and June's background music was amazing.
  • June's song in "Won't Stick To Most Dental Work". That little girl (referring to June, her VA was actually 15 at the time, and still has a great voice) had a great voice. To bad there was never a musical episode with June being the lead.
  • All the music in The Off-Beats had a jazzy, Peanuts flavor to it.

• Hey Arnold!'s Jim Lang gave us quite a few.
  • "Thinkin' It Over" plays while Stinky contemplates his role as a Butt-Monkey spokesperson for Yahoo soda.
  • "Eugene Paints It Black," which, yes, is about Eugene.
  • "What's Opera, Arnold?" Inspired by the infamous Looney Tunes cartoon "What's Opera, Doc?", this episode paid Homage to Carmen, "Ride of the Valkyries", and Pagliacci (Harold's Superfluous Solo) by having the kids act out the major roles of Carmen: Arnold as Don Jose, Ruth as Carmen, then Helga as Carmen, and Curly as Escamillo.
  • I saw, I saw... your face... AND WOW!!!

• The Rocket Power theme is the perfect song to pump you up for the show to come.

• ChalkZone, definitely, for its theme music, occasional songs within episodes ("Hula-Baloo", "Fire Plug Ballet", etc.) and especially the music videos that ended most every episode!
• The Backyardigans can make genres you have never heard of sound good.
• Doug:
  • Bangin' On A Trash Can. Just listen to that awesome banjo riff.
  • The music of The Beets, a (fictional) rock band featured in the show. Just listen to the pure awesome that are Shout Your Lungs Out, I Need Mo' Allowance, and Killer Tofu.
  • Most of the incidental music in the series is spun off from characters' Leitmotifs, but "Doug's Lucky Hat" has a particularly atmospheric pipe and guitar-based theme that is a perfect fit for the central plot idea of the Maybe Magic, Maybe Mundane hat that lands at Doug's feet, just as the hat is a perfect fit for Doug's head.
• All of the music in The Penguins of Madagascar.
  • The incidentals and montages. "The Greatest Danger is Love" and "Graveyeard 8". Jeff Bennett, John DiMaggio, and Fred Stoller pulled off an amazing banjo folk song that was completely unexpected and awesome.
  • Dr. Blowhole's Villain Song, "Brand New Plan", and Villain Love Song, "I Wanna Control You", from The Return of the Revenge Of Dr.Blowhole.
• My Life as a Teenage Robot:
  • The theme tune, especially the instrumental version. The Christmas special also had its own unique opening and ending version, complete with all the extra bells and whistles.
  • The ominous Cluster war march Leitmotif.
  • The very trippy Mozart-meets-Vangelis music playing over Jenny's very first dream in "Daydream Believer", and likewise the romance theme over Sheldon's Imagine Spot when he meets QT-2.
  • The bubblegum pop-ish "They Need Me" as well as the Dark Reprise of the show's theme song from "Escape From Cluster Prime".
• The Rocko's Modern Life Musical Episode "Zanzibar!". Never has a Green Aesop been so entertaining and catchy.
• The CatDog theme song. All together now: "One fine day with a woof and a purr..."
• The Rocket Monkeys theme song, which many say is the best part of the show. "They're Rocket Monkeys! Monkeys in Space! They try to be heroes, but they're easy to replace! They're not the brightest. They're not the best. They're not the coolest. They also have bad breath!"
• The theme song to All Grown Up!. Even if you do hate the show, you do have to admit that the theme is fucking awesome.
• From Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius, "Go Jimmy Jimmy" and this specific version of "Kids in America". A cover of an '80s song has never sounded as epic than this one.
• The Loud House:
  • The theme song is insanely catchy. It manages to explain the basic premise of the show without being an Expository Theme Tune. "One boy and ten girls, wouldn't trade it for the world!" Extra points go to its rousing tune that sounds like something Luna would write.
  • The ending theme is a slower and more relaxed version of the opening theme.
  • "You Got Tricked", the song at the of "Tricked". The fun visuals help.
  • Fenton the Feel-Better Fox's "Cheer Up, Baby" song becomes one In-Universe. Not for the rest of the Louds, but for Lily. Besides, it's a cute song despite Lily's annoying behaviour with it.
  • Lisa demonstrates a surprisingly good singing voice in "The Mad Scientist" with her "This Lab Is Where I Belong" song, especially that ending lyric!
  • "We Got This", the rousing ditty Lincoln sings in "Schooled!", has an uplifting message of teamwork and positivity.

Cartoon Network Original

• While Thundercats 2011 only has about ten seconds to cram in the original series' awesome theme, it does so very, very well. Case in point.
  • Then there's also the closing credits music.
• Courage the Cowardly Dog, the music from the Dr. Gerbil's World ep, when the river chase is going on.
  • The soundtrack to the episode "The Tower of Dr. Zalost" was also excellent.
  • The organ and choir theme that plays in the episodes "The House of Discontent", "Courage in the Big Stinkin' City", and "The Quilt Club" was good. Creepy and haunting yes, but good. For Doom the Bell Tolls adds even more epicness!
• Regardless of the movie's quality, Star Wars: The Clone Wars had a pretty good soundtrack. In particular, "The Battle of Christophsis" stands out as especially awesome.
  • As for the 2003 series, the music that plays during General Grievous' Establishing Character Moment of delivering a No-Holds-Barred Beatdown to FIVE JEDI AT ONCE is both creepy and Awesome Music at once.
  • As for tracks coming from the 2008 series, we have "Passing the Secret" (which can also double as a Tear Jerker), which parts of play during the death scenes of Echo, Even Piell and Fives.
  • This track which plays during the fistfight with Sergeant Slick is a remix of the speeder chase music from Attack of the Clones and the Leitmotifs for the clone army.
  • The train fight music from "Bounty" (which also partly shows up in "The Unknown") is a neat combination of electronic and orchestra.
  • "Everyone Fighting" from "Altar of Mortis", which combines a few of the series' stock tracks and the Mortis Leitmotif.
  • (Warning! Links contain spoilers for the Season 5 finale arc!) This collection of tracks makes up the entire chase sequence at the end of "The Jedi Who Knew Too Much".
  • (Warning! More spoilers from that arc!) "Duel in the Jedi Temple", which plays during Anakin's duel with Barriss Offee in "The Wrong Jedi".
  • (Again, spoilers from the same arc) These two tracks are some of the last tracks in "The Wrong Jedi". Also double as Tear Jerkers. And that last part of the latter is the credits theme for that episode (and then the series finale, "Sacrifice").
• As Megas XLR says : YOU! DIG! GIANT ROBOTS! I! DIG! GIANT ROBOTS! WE! DIG! GIANT ROBOTS! CHICKS! DIG! GIANT ROBOTS!... Nice!
  • The whole soundtrack. Hear for yourself.
• Code Lyoko has some pretty awesome music. The opening theme is insanely catchy.
  • And it's also available in orchestral form!
  • The tune played whenever monsters show up and attack stands out as well. It's pretty cool.
• The Marvelous Misadventures of Flapjack's opening theme is pretty darn catchy, despite the fact that it doesn't look like much effort was put into it.
• The Grim Adventures of Billy & Mandy has the episode Little Rock of Horrors, inspired by Little Shop of Horrors, set to the sublime and very catchy BRAINS! by Voltaire (additionally, his song Land of the Dead was in Billy and Mandy's Big Boogey Adventure) and in the same movie Scary O. Also Battle of the Bands with a small part of the song Darkness by SPF 1000. Keeper of the Reaper has a very nice song as well.
• Dexter's Laboratory: "Enter at your peril, past the vaulted door; impossible things will happen that the world's never seen before..."
  • "In Dexter's laboratory lives the smartest boy you've ever seen. But Dee Dee blows his experiments to smithereens! There is gloom and doom while things go boom...IN DEXTER'S LAB!"
  • The fully opera episode, "LABretto". Dexter's anguished song at the end in particular stands out.
  • Secret Formula and Back to the Lab from The Hip Hop Experiment album.
• The Ben 10: Alien Force intro uses the main theme from the original Ben 10, but adds a more mature, Orchestra (and Horn) touch to it. -He's Ben 10!
• Scooby-Doo! Mystery Incorporated:
  • The theme song and the credits song.
  • For two songs that were already pretty heavy, the show manages to make "I'm a Hex Girl" and "Earth, Wind, Fire, and Air" into even heavier, The Sisters of Mercy-style bone-crunching goth rock. The synthesized choir in the latter is especially fantastic. Pity there's only about thirty seconds of it. There's also a gothy power ballad original to the show called Trap of Love, sung by Daphne of all people.
  • The brilliantly weird Velvet Underground-meets-Inception track "The Hunters" from "Art of Darkness". It turns out to be a very, very slowed down polka song.
• The opening and ending themes from Codename: Kids Next Door.
  • Themes hell. GWAR as killer cafeteria food!
• Got to get back, back to the past Samurai Jack. WATCH OUT!

• Cartoon Cartoon FRIDAYS! Cartoon Cartoon FRIDAYS! Cartoon Cartoon FRIDAYS! ^note "Don't make me sing!"
  • If you like that, then check this out!
  • The third and final Cartoon Network Fridays theme is energetic, fast-paced, and nostalgic.
• Scooby-Doo on Zombie Island has this brilliant little piece of chase music.

• The "totally 80's" vibe of Regular Show has an awesome 80's soundtrack to match. Special recognition should most definately be given to the use of Loverboy's "Working for the Weekend" during the montage scene from the episode "Caffinated Concert Tickets".
  • Regular Show in general makes excellent use of licensed music. One example being "Mississippi Queen" by Mountain during a bad trip after drinking a concoction of the same name.
• The Duck Dodgers theme (full version), with the Flaming Lips and Tom Jones doing vocals! These guys really put their all into it!
• Cartoon Network's 20th Anniversary medley features an orchestra covering the themes from some of the network's finest shows. From The Flintstones and Space Ghost(!) to The Powerpuff Girls and Adventure Time, this musical montage commemorates CN's 20th anniversary fantastically.
• The jazz scores throughout the entire Ed, Edd n Eddy soundtrack manage to both perfectly set the scene and be so goddamn cool.
  • Special mention goes to the final song used in The Movie. What's this? Guitars? Add the Heartwarming ending to the entire series to that, and you've got an EPIC closer.
• Rebecca Sugar was known for composing some of the best songs on Adventure Time. Naturally, once she got her own show, just about every soundtrack is absolutely gorgeous, even the background music. Trying to list them all would take forever, but quite a few are up on Sound Cloud.
• Class of 3000 has tons of great music courtesy of Andre 3000, who worked and voiced on the show. Some examples include Oh Peanut, Kim and Kam Jam, and the theme itself.

Fox Cartoon

• American Dad!: The intro "Oh boy, it's swell to sayyy..."...GOOD MORNING, U.S.AAAA!"
  • Eight words: Krispy Kreme McDonald's Jam-Tasic Roller Boogie Prawn Experience. Every song they play is a public domain song made awesome.

• Most of the occasional musical numbers on Futurama are completely awesome. Especially the 'Robot Hell' song and 'This Trinity's Going to War' from The Movie.
  • Ladies and gentlemen, we present you - the extended theme song!
  • The music playing when Fry saves the day at the end of "Three Hundred Big Boys" is pretty friggin' awesome.
  • So is "That Was Then (And This is Too)", the theme to "Into the Wild Green Yonder", sung by none other than Seth MacFarlane in the swingin' style of Frank Sinatra. For all of the guy's faults, he sure can sing.
  • The space battle music from "Bender's Big Score" is awesome.
  • Their excellent use of non-originals. Bender whistling "Sweet Georgia Brown" at the end of "Time Keeps on Slippin'" is amazing. Even better is the sort-of "evil alien" version of "Sweet Georgia Brown" that plays when the Globetrotters first arrive on Earth. Easy to miss, but awesome nevertheless.
  • Some more awesome songs include this one from "A Tale of Two Santas" and this one from the end of "How Hermes Requisitioned His Groove Back", both of which are aided by the cast's generally good singing voices.
  • "Bendin' in the Wind" gives us Bender's unbelievably catchy song "My Broken Friend", about how broken-down robots aren't worthless. Even Beck's constant Aside Comments can't ruin it.

Movies

• "The Machines" from 9 is short, yet epic.
• This was already mentioned on the film page but because it is also animation, Alpha and Omega has the howling scenes, which were absolutely great.
• The Asterix movies have some good music...but these songwriters are crazy!
  • Asterix est la!- from Asterix vs Caesar
  • Say Goodbye from Asterix Conquers America, performed by Bonnie Tyler.
• "Heritage of the Wolf" from Balto, especially the scene where Balto howls with the White Wolf. Also "Reach for the Light". And from the sequel, "Who You Really Are" which Muru sings to Aleu. Also, "The Grand Design", the song the wolf pack sings (including cameos from David Carradine and villain Mark Hamill!).
• The BIONICLE movies have a pretty good score. See for yourself.
• From The Care Bears Movie: Care-a-Lot, and from the second Forever Young.
• The entire soundtrack of Cats Don't Dance, with extra points to Animal Jam and Tell Me Lies. There's a reason this out of print Randy Newman soundtrack CD goes for upwards of $100.
• The original Spanish introduction of La Colina del Dragón is simply so energetic and awe inspiring.... even if the CGI is terribly dated (thankfully, it's followed by traditional animation rather quickly).
• Coraline
  • Just the opening track "Dreaming" is so stunningly beautiful. The whole soundtrack is unbelievably awesome.
  • "Installation", which sets up the mood of the first half of the movie, before everything starts getting fucked up.
  • And its cousin, "Exploration".
  • "The Other Father Song", by They Might Be Giants. The lyric is also full of subtle, extremely creepy Foreshadowing.
  • "Fantastic Garden", half the reason everyone keeps grinning stupidly during the title sequence, the other half being the ungodly amount of Scenery Porn, done WITH A BOX OF SCRAPS!
• Depending on the person, Felix the Cat: The Movie ranges from So Bad, It's Good to downright terrible overall; but nobody can deny that its Villain Song "Who Is the Boss?" is one of the catchiest songs in any animated film from the 80's.
  • Most people agree that the best piece in the movie is "Face to the Wind (The Princess Song)".
• Ferngully. If you like Robin Williams, there's The Batty Rap. If you like Tim Curry, there's Toxic Love. And if you like award-baiting love ballads, there's A Dream Worth Keeping.
• The G.I. Joe theme people, especially the movie theme.
• Heavy Metal has a soundtrack that's not just awesome - it's awesomeness to the extreme.
• The Hobbit, as adapted by Rankin Bass.
  • "Down, Down to Goblin Town" and "Fifteen Birds in Five Fir Trees" are very catchy examples of the Villain Song, a catchiness that also grabs hold of the light-hearted "In the Valley, Ha Ha!" and "Rolling Down the Hole". The best of the soundtrack is when Glenn Yarbrough sings "Roads" and "The Greatest Adventure."
  • "Far Over The Misty Mountains Cold", to the point that fans of this version wondered how on earth the live-action version could compete.
• The sequel The Return of the King may be So Bad, It's Good overall, but boy does it have some catchy songs.
  • "Frodo of the Nine Fingers".
  • "Where There's A Whip, There's A Way".
  • "Towers of the Teeth".

• The one Lucky Luke song almost everyone knows: "I'm a poor lonesome cowboy a long way from home".
• The Movie of The Phantom Tollbooth had a lot of moderately cute music... Tock's song "Time Is A Gift," and the Grand Finale, "Rhyme And Reason Reign." Yes, everything IS better with Princesses...as long as their names are Sweet Rhyme and Pure Reason. :)
• "Aisling's Song" from The Secret of Kells. "Yooouuu muuuust go wheeere I cannoooot..."
• Far Longer Than Forever from The Swan Princess.
• The only bit worth watching in Tom and Jerry: The Movie is the delightful "Money is Such a Beautiful Word".
• The Triplets of Belleville uses Mozart's "Mass in C Minor - Kyrie" during the incredibly dramatic storm at sea segment.
  • Then there's the main theme, "Belleville Rendez-vouz". It's a jazz number performed on vacuum cleaner and bicycle spokes. Need we say more?
  • Cabaret Hoover is also incredibly catchy.
• The Cult Classic Twice Upon a Time has two great songs: for its opening Dramatis Personae segment there's "Heartbreak Town" (sung by Bruce Hornsby), and the title song (sung by Maureen McDonald) plays over the lovely closing sequence and credits.
• "You and Me" from The Jetsons Movie
• Rock & Rule has a pretty good soundtrack, especially the triumphant and epic final song Send Love Through.

TV series

• 12 oz. Mouse: Skillet's three-minute animated drum solo, which ends with his drums bursting into flames.
• The Animals of Farthing Wood. The main theme/intro for the series is plain awesome!
• Aqua Teen Hunger Force:
  • Meatwad's solo. That's on the list for one of the best guitar solos ever.
  • Mastodon's "Cut You Up With A Linoleum Knife", in which various pieces of movie snacks present a death metal version of a movie theater policy trailer. Even the people at Adult Swim thought that was the main highlight of the Aqua Teens movie.
• Arthur:
  • I WAS JEKYLL JEKYLL HYDE JEKYLL HYDE HYDE JEKYLL!
  • HAVING FUN ISN'T HARD WHEN YOU'VE GOT A LIBRARY CARD!
  • Just a little homework tonight...
• The intro music to Atomic Puppet is badass. Once it hits the 5 second mark, it's atomic time. And here it is straight from the production team's channel.
• The Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes! intro
  • As well as "REVENGERS Assemble", this awesome though unused theme composed by Ron Wasserman (who also created the masterpiece that is the theme song for Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers).
• Avenger Penguins...BIIIIKE UP!!!!

• Low budget animation and dissonant voices aside, the music of The Beatles speaks volumes. Amped considerably with Yellow Submarine.
• The Animated Adaptation's version of Danny Elfman's Beetlejuice Theme (HD).
  • The Animated Adaptation's version of The Addams Family theme.
• The Biker Mice from Mars theme tune. And also the show's soundtrack especially the songs "Tunnel Rat" "Look Out Below" and "Born To Be Wild".

• The über-manlily awesome introduction of Conan the Adventurer.
• The Critic has two that really stand out, which are Jay's "I Want" Song "Nothing's Gonna Stop Me Now" and a musical number from Apocalypse Wow!
• Cult favorite Cybersix has an awesome intro. Sucks that they never made/released an extended version.
• The opening theme to Danger Mouse.
  • Naturally, after all, "He's the strongest, he's the quickest he's the beeeeeeest!"
• From the mind of Danny Elfman, based on the theme to Forbidden Zone, there is the theme to Dilbert. Paired with the panning titles, it captures the insanity of Dilbert's world perfectly. Have a listen!
• From the somewhat obscure edutainment show Destination Space, the opening theme Final Encounter offers a fitting science fiction feel for whatever journey the S.I.M.s are about to partake in.
• Detentionaire has an epic theme song that fits with the tone of the show, and an awesome guitar riff to back it up.
• The cheesy yet awesome Dinosaur Train theme song.
• The Dreamstone had a lavish soundtrack provided by Mike Batt and the London Philharmonic Orchestra. Perhaps most notable is the main theme "Better Than A Dream" and the Villain Song "War Song of the Urpneys".
• Exo Squad had about one piece of music for its first season. Thank god it's awesome.
• Fantastic Four: The theme of the Season One opening. Even better is Season Two's theme.
• Flipper and Lopaka: The theme song grows on you fast.
• Footrot Flats: The Dog's Tale gives us "Slice of Heaven" by Dave Dobbyn and Herbs.
• Galaxy Rangers. The soundtrack in all of its 80's rock glory was so beloved by the fanbase that they begged Mandell and Koch to put it on the DVD collection separately from the episodes.
  • "No Guts No Glory" (opening theme).
  • "Rangers are Forever" (closing credits #2).
  • "Somewhere a Heart".
  • "Fight To the Finish".
  • "Psychocrystal".
• The Garfield Show intro has some nice, upbeat music to compliment the high energy crammed into less than 30 seconds worth of animation.
  • "Ladies and gentlemen, Garfield and Friends!"
  • "Well, he's a fat cat, a cool cat, nobody's fool cat, look out, 'cause Here Comes Garfield"
• Though it is somewhat polarizing, the theme song to the Geronimo Stilton cartoon does evoke spy movies a bit.
• The theme song of Godzilla: The Series wasn't half bad.
• The theme for Harvey Birdman, Attorney at Law is just marvelous. Pity it's so short.
• The Italian opening theme for He-Man and the Masters of the Universe (2002) is a 3-minute long rock piece. Watch out for the guitar solo at 2:24.
• In Home Movies, Brendon Small works in some cool garage band music with the band SCAB, including a Franz Kafka rock opera. Front man Duane, in a guitar competition, takes Brendon's trashed, untuned rental guitar and makes it sing. (He doesn't win. He was robbed.) Doubly awesome in that the people behind Home Movies are the same people responsible for Metalocalypse.
• Inspector Gadget: GO GADGET GO!
  • Also the credits theme, which might have been even better than the main theme.
  • Really, the entire score. And on the subject, here's the French version of the theme. Its silly lyrics reflect Gadget's clumsiness well anyway. On the other hand, the French version of Penny's theme, at least without the words, is pretty good. The version in the show is even better (one of them anyway, there were several).
• The second US opening to the 90's Iron Man cartoon. It'll really put hairs on your chest, even if you're a woman.
• Jem. It's her name. She's truly outrageous.
  • Every single episode should count. The writers had to come up with at least three brand new songs every single episode. Some songs were recycled, but yeah, every episode.
• The kickass opening theme to Jonny Quest.
  • Whatever your feelings about Jonny Quest: The Real Adventures, you gotta admit that this is an awesome remake of the classic theme.
• The Jumanji cartoon had an excellent opening theme.
• King Arthur & the Knights of Justice. Not many people seem to remember this cartoon, about a Football team that gets transported to the middle ages to replace the missing King Arthur and his knights. But the opening theme song to this show is pure epic.
• The Legend of Prince Valiant's intro.
• Magoo's Christmas Carol had its share of memorable songs.
  • "Winter Was Warm".
  • "The Lord's Bright Blessing".
  • "We're Despicable (The Plunderer's March)".
• Metalocalypse has some downright awesome music.
  • Just listen to Go Into the Water and Awaken. There's a good reason Dethklok made the best-selling death metal album of all time. In real life.
  • Additionally: "The Lost Vikings", "Detharmonic", and the truly epic "Thunderhorse".
  • This. Dethklok puts on a concert that lasts about a minute and fifteen seconds and manages to kill and horribly maim hundreds of their fans. For a coffee jingle.
  • From season 2; Black Fire Upon Us.
  • Aside from all the death metal, Charles Foster Offdensen has his own sweeping, heroic instrumental that's heard during the Siege of Mordhaus during the S2 finale, as well as the S3 premier where it blends perfectly with Dethklok's song at the end of the ep. Said motif is also in One Of Us Must DIE.
  • Pickles' rehab rock opera in Rehabklok.
  • The season 03 finale gave us "The Beginning." As an added bonus, the song plays as Dethklok pulls off a double booked concert and brings peace to the Middle East. It is as epic as it sounds. Also Try The Galaxy, the Full version of The Beginning.
  • Rejoining Earth which is a Triumphant Reprise of The Beginning from the Season 4 premiere. Now a glorious full length track on Dethalbum III.
  • The Doomstar Requiem: A Klok Opera. Brendon Small sings for 13 different characters, included guest appearances by George "Corpsegrinder" Fisher, Jack Black, and featured a 50 piece orchestral score composed by Bear McCreary (who were all apparently dressed like Klokateers during the recording). It's 45 minutes of melodic/symphonic death metal, and is as awesome as it sounds. The Villain Song, "Magnus and the Assassin", is a highlight. So is "The Duel". And "The Blazing Star", the only Dethklok single of the album.
  • In the grand Dethklok tradition, the latest Dethalbum brought several tracks from the show and amped them up to eleven in glorious full length. Special mention goes to I Ejaculate Fire, Crush The Industry, and at long last, Impeach God.
  • Dr. Rockzo's "Dory," probably the best song ever written about molesting a 14-year-old girl.

• My Little Pony: The Movie (1986) has "There's Always Another Rainbow". And from the show, we have "We Are the Flutter Ponies", music to kick evil tail to.
• Ocean Girl: The Animated Series' theme, The Promised One
• Over the Garden Wall has a really good theme song, and has other good ones, like "The Beast Song" from "Songs of the Dark Lantern".
• Peanuts.
  • The iconic "Linus and Lucy" theme.
  • The early Peanuts animated specials were gloriously blessed by the jazz scores by Vince Guaraldi. The first one, A Charlie Brown Christmas is even more awesome for its breakthrough innovation; the idea of using jazz for an animated family TV special was unthinkable, but Guaraldi changed everyone's mind instantly.
  • The David Benoit arrangements of Guaraldi's classics in the post "It's Spring Training, Charlie Brown" specials are pretty awesome too. Of note is the jamming remix of the Charlie Brown Theme in the Bird Football scenes of "You're In The Super Bowl, Charlie Brown".
  • As is most of the music in "It's Flashbeagle, Charlie Brown".
  • "Bon Voyage, Charlie Brown" has some scary and heroic music at the scene where the chateau burns.
• Popeye the Sailor Meets Sindbad the Sailor. Whoooooooo's the most remarkable, extraordinary fellow?
• The opening theme of The Real Ghostbusters manages to top the original version.
  • Similarly, the little-known opening theme of 1986's Filmation's Ghostbusters is this, despite the fact that its only lyrics are "Let's go, Ghostbusters! Let's go! Let's go, Let's go!". The pipe organ section, which interpolates part of Bach's Toccata and Fugue in D minor, has something to do with this.
  • The instrumental section is based on Edvard Grieg's "In the Hall of the Mountain King."
• Randy Cunningham: 9th Grade Ninja has 30 Seconds to Math performing their song Detention Deficit Disorder.
• ReBoot:
  • In "Talent Night" Megabyte invades Enzo's birthday party...to perform a hard rock solo with speakers turned Up to Eleven. Not to be outdone, Bob has Glitch turn into a guitar. What follows is a guitar duel so epic that a picture of it is on the series' Awesome page.
    Bob: (At the beginning of the duel) Glitch...BFG.
    Megabyte: (At the end) I've always wanted to do that.
  • After episodes of despair and very close victories over Megabyte, Firewall heralds the point where things start going the heroes' way... for a while.
• While the Redwall cartoon was... Well, opinions vary, but the theme tune had a lovely Mediaeval feel to it.
• Robotech?: The 15th Squadron, Roy Fokker's Theme, Rick Hunter's theme, Battle Station, and Alien Attack.
• The intro of Silverhawks: Wings of silver, birds of steel... Silverhawks!
• The 1990s Silver Surfer opening sequence, short as it was, is awesome enough to contain its own Ominous Latin Chanting. Hear it for yourself here, if you can tune out all the swooshing-in-space sounds that are layered on top of it.
• Sonic Underground's theme song blends epic, heartwarming, tearjerking moments and an amazing backstory all together.
• Though the main series is no slouch when it throws its musical numbers, South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut has an undeniably glorious, catchy, and beautiful soundtrack. Special mention goes to the trope-naming song, La Resistance.
• Space Goofs. Long story short: Iggy Pop sings the theme song. Special mention to its extended version.
• The Super Chicken theme is as geeky as he is.

• Superjail!: Pretty much every song on the damn show, especially the opening and closing themes.
• SWAT Kats also got some pretty sweet ass music opening theme music too, one for season one, and another for season 2.
• The theme songs for TMNT shows tend to be very catchy. Just listen to the 1987, 2003 and 2012 themes.
• Tintin theme tune.
• Thunderbirds has a theme song so awesome it has become a military band standard.
• Total Drama World Tour
  • "Come Fly With Us" is positively reeks of awesomeness. Which is saying a lot, since most fans thought the concept of music in the show was going to be worse than all the fart jokes. But with a little auto-tuning and actually a nice beat, even Ezekiel and Noah of all people are probably the best singers in the song!
  • Stuck To A Pole makes the classic "tongue on a flagpole" prank epic.
  • Lovin' Time and its reprise Rowin' Time. Any of the songs so far.
  • Despite its strange subject matter, Wake Up is a very awesome song, most notably at the very end.
  • This Is How We Will End It deserves a special mention. Muppets have never been so hardcore! Followed by "Versus", which captured the denouement of Heather's and Alejandro's relationship. The two bitterly criticize each other while viciously competing (the only way those two know how to compete). Watching "This Is How We'll End It" and "Versus" back to back is simply epic.
  • Cody's solo in Condor.
  • We Built Gwen's Face which is also a tribute to the music group ABBA.
  • BoyFriend Kisser song that, in Canada, was voted as the favorite of the audience.
• The Underdog Theme Song. Who knew a very old cartoon show could have a theme song so very epic?
  • And then it was covered by Butthole Surfers.
  • It also got an awesome a capella cover by The Blanks (aka Ted's band, The Worthless Peons, from Scrubs). It can be heard "here". Same can be said about a lot of the covers featured on 'Saturday Morning: Cartoon's greatest hits'. Just check out The Ramones doing Spider-Man, Sponge doing Speed Racer, The Violent Femmes doing Eep Opp Ork Ah-Ah and Face to Face covering Popeye. All very awesome.
  • The rap cover of the theme song (by Kyle Massey) for the movie was pretty interesting.
• The Venture Bros. has quite an epic soundtrack that manages to have quite a bit of variety to it, even the occasional classical piece sneaked in for good measure. The usage of "Mars, Bringer of War", in the episode "Hate Floats", for example... Or compare/contrast the main theme for the show with the theme for Rusty Venture, as an example of the talent of J.G. Thirlwell.
  • Dr. Orpheus has Awesome Music reserved for his most mundane actions.
  • The absolutely awesome use of Pulp's 'Like A Friend' in the season 4 finale, available here.
• If there's anything about Voltron that is definitely superior to the original anime, GoLion, it's the awesome score by John Peterson.
• The opening theme for Vytor The Starfire Champion, a mini-series from the same creators of Voltron and Saber Rider and the Star Sheriffs. "Fantasy becomes reality, in a galaxy far away..."
• The intro of Where on Earth Is Carmen Sandiego? is Mozart as a cartoon intro! The Nostalgia Chick said it best:
  "Wherever she is, it must be in the land of epic!"
• Woody Woodpecker got one in the short The Barber of Seville.
  • The intro to Woody's cartoons is pretty memorable as well.
• World of Quest. The theme song is impossibly catchy, and pretty damn awesome too. "Save the World! The World of Quest! (Doo doo doo doo doo doo doo!)"
• The original opening theme for the X-Men animated series in the '90s deserves a mention as well.
  • If you think that's good, take a listen at what the Japanese slapped on their dub on the show. CRY FOR THE MOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOON!!!!
  • The opening for Pryde of the X-Men (the original pilot pitch for what would be reworked into the 90's series) is bombastic, energetic, and so gloriously 80's.
• Phantom 2040 would probably be remembered only by fans of the hero identity, or fans of Peter Chung, but it had a really awesome opening theme.
• This song from the film "The Princess and the Goblin".
• The greatest Villain Sucks Song of all time. Sing it: You're a mean one, Mister Grinch... You really aaaaare a heeeeeeeell...
• "Walking in the Air" from The Snowman.
• Rock & Rule:
  • "My Name Is Mok, Thanks A Lot!"
  • "Send Love Through."
• Might just be nostalgia kicking in, but the theme tune for Rescue Heroes made a show based on The Real Heroes almost work.
• Regardless of what you think about the actual cartoon, regardless of the lyrics being the same line over and over again — SUPER FIGHTING ROBOT! MEGA MAN!
• The opening theme to the animated versions of Soul Music and Wyrd Sisters. Not only is it epic, it fits the whole 'disc on the back of four elephants on the back of a turtle' thing. Listen to it with headphones on for added awesome.
  • Also the soundtrack to Soul Music. As a story entirely about the Disc's first Music With Rocks In Band, it pays homage to a variety of bands and styles. Plus Sioni Bod Da, the music Buddy sold his soul for one last chance to play

• On Care Bears & Cousins, Harmony Bear's song in "Share Air" really is quite nice. It has a sort of mellow vibe like some of the music from the 80s. And unlike what happens to the bears on the show, it won't actually make you float on air, heavy instruments or no.

• The opening intro of Big Guy and Rusty the Boy Robot is a stirring Army-chorus styled Expository Theme Tune that lovingly celebrates the series' combination of Eagleland and Zeerust tropes, all while displaying some pretty gratuitous explosions to boot.

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