Interview: ‘Hey Arnold!’ Composer Jim Lang on His Latest Adventures in Scoring for Children’s Animation

Composer Jim Lang cemented himself as a legend of children’s animation quite early in his career, lending Craig Bartlett‘s Hey Arnold! its now-iconic jazz-tinged score.

“I like to say that on a good day the music just sticks to the picture, and Hey Arnold! was the all-time stickiest,” says Lang. “I wasn’t envisioning a long life for the music, I was just in the very happy circumstance of having really great stuff to score.”

And yet, Lang’s reputation precedes him as one of the foremost sonic innovators in the genre, and he has maintained that degree of excellence on more recent projects like Disney’s Primos and Apple TV+’s Not a Box, the latter of which is based on the popular illustrated book series by Antoinette Portis.

“In the series, each 11-minute episode is a brand-new world to play in,” says Lang. “My job with the music is to help bring those different worlds to life – whether the box turns into a pirate ship, a train, or a piano – and to keep Riley’s energy front and center. The playful, colorful look of the show, along with Riley’s performance, were huge inspirations for the score.”

Not a Box marks yet another smash hit on Apple TV+, and Lang’s music is a large reason why. In case the award-winning composer was not busy enough, Lang is also proud to be scoring The Weather Hunters, Al Roker’s new children’s series for PBS. But how does he juggle so many accomplished projects at once?

“By focusing on writing a more polished first draft, I’ve been able to save a full day from my writing schedule on each episode,” says Lang. “I remember when it was standard wisdom that a composer should be able to write and orchestrate about three minutes a day. On Weather Hunters, I’ve been finishing a first pass of a 22-minute episode in just three days.”

Check out our full conversation with Jim Lang below, as we dive deeper into his work on each of these incredible series!

Hi Jim! You have worked on several excellent animated series this year, including Disney’s Primos and Apple TV+’s Not a Box. How have you juggled the creative demands of multiple projects over the course of your career? 

At times in the last couple of years, I’ve had three different shows in production at the same time – a first for me! With so many projects on my plate and tight deadlines looming, I had to figure out how to move a little faster.

The first step was making some small but important tweaks to my workflow. I’ve been using the same DAW for years, but out of necessity I finally dug deeper and discovered a dozen or so key commands and shortcuts I’d somehow missed before. They turned out to be real time-savers. I also programmed extra functionality into my controller keyboard, which has sped up the whole composition process.

I also rethought the way I draft scores. By focusing on writing a more polished first draft, I’ve been able to save a full day from my writing schedule on each episode. I remember when it was standard wisdom that a composer should be able to write and orchestrate about three minutes a day. On Weather Hunters, I’ve been finishing a first pass of a 22-minute episode in just three days.

And while Not a Box and Primos overlapped for a few months – and are very different scores – switching gears between them turned out to be surprisingly smooth.

Not a Box has a very focused palette with a handmade feel. Even though most of it lived “in the box” (pun intended), I approached it as if it were being played by a small ensemble full of quirky instruments. Primos, on the other hand, was the complete opposite – it pulled from just about every genre you can imagine, from flamenco death metal to classic ’40s-style Mexican corridos to over-the-top video game bombast. That variety made arranging both a challenge and a lot of fun.

Another big part of the Primos score was the sheer number of stings. I ended up filling two entire 88-note keyboards with them, which became a real signature of the score, and a huge time saver.

You are perhaps most well-known for your iconic work on Hey Arnold! for Nickelodeon. Did you have a sense at the time that your jazzy score would endure so many years later? What do you think lends that show’s music such staying power?

We really had no idea of the durability of Hey Arnold!. As Craig (Bartlett, Hey Arnold!’s creator) has said a number of times, the writers and the animators really found the show as they worked their way through the first seasons. That is absolutely true for the score as well.

Craig and I had traded ideas for musical influences while we were working on the pilot, but the pilot was short and ended with a song which took up about a minute of the 7- minute running time, so there wasn’t a lot of space for exploration there.

But when I got the picture for “Downtown As Fruits” (Ep 1) there was such a vibe! There was this gorgeous background art, and phenomenal voice performances from the whole cast. And the animation was so freaking funny and kinetic. I like to say that on a good day the music just sticks to the picture, and Hey Arnold! was the all-time stickiest. So, no, I wasn’t envisioning a long life for the music, I was just in the very happy circumstance of having really great stuff to score.

I think people connect to a couple of things in the music. First, there is a sense of place that comes from the New Jack beats and the jazzy changes and melody.  And then a connection to the characters, who are living in a world where the adults, although loving, are fallible in pretty crazy ways. The blues have a humorous tone that really sticks to that. The other music that really has had a life over the years is the bittersweet score that plays to Arnold’s essential question of “Where are my parents?” Those cues have a LOT of listens on the web.

Not a Box was a highly anticipated series for young viewers, considering it is adapted from Antoinette Portis’ award-winning picture book. What kind of inspiration did you take from Portis’ source material?

I read the book, of course, when I began work on the series. It is really charming and goes by in a flash. What really makes it work is Riley’s mischievous repetition of “It’s not a box…” and the delightful reveals of what the box becomes in her imagination.

In the series, each 11-minute episode is a brand-new world to play in. My job with the music is to help bring those different worlds to life – whether the box turns into a pirate ship, a train, or a piano – and to keep Riley’s energy front and center. The playful, colorful look of the show, along with Riley’s performance, were huge inspirations for the score.

The pre-production music brief was another big influence, which imagined a score full of toys, found instruments, and just a light touch of synths. I ended up pulling sounds from just about every odd little thing in my house at one point or another. In that sense, I wasn’t just scoring Riley’s adventures; I was joining in on the game.

You also scored Al Roker’s PBS series The Weather Hunters. What was your overall creative vision for the show’s score?

Weather Hunters came along while I was still in the middle of working on Primos, which has a very kinetic score, 11-minute episodes powered by the mental soundtrack of a 10-year-old girl with a wildly rich inner life. By contrast, Weather Hunters is built around 22-minute episodes. The pacing is much calmer, with a lot of repetition to help young viewers follow the educational content. Jumping into that world felt a bit like stepping off a moving walkway at the airport.

My goal with Weather Hunters was to carry the audience along and provide a sense of motion, without ever crowding the dialogue. In practice, scoring it feels more like writing for a drama than a cartoon, with cues that often stretch to a minute or two. That approach has given the show a warm, cozy feel, which I hope people will connect with.

On an educational series like The Weather Hunters, what kind of role can the music play in supporting a young viewer’s learning?

I like to sprinkle in little phrases and stings throughout the score to spotlight the science ideas. Lily, the aspiring young meteorologist, uses a special pair of glasses – her “Flex Specs” and a tablet to track her observations, so I use a similar score for her interactions with the glasses and the images that pop up on her screen. At the same time, Al Roker, who created the show and also plays the dad, asked for some West African influences in the score to honor his ancestry. I’ve used that as a foundation for montage sequences and playful beats.

And then there are a few special episodes that call for something bigger, whether it’s evoking a strong sense of place or highlighting an extraordinary historical story. Those moments get the extra lift of a “big screen” kind of score.

How does your creative approach differ when composing a show’s opening or closing theme, as opposed to musical cues over the course of an episode?

Well, for one thing, theme songs are essentially pop songs, so they can be really banging. No need to protect the dialogue! I don’t always get to do the theme song, but when I do, I like to make it sound like the rest of the score, so that people immediately identify it with the show.