Emmy Award winning composer Rich Dickerson is responsible for the original music you hear on Zoonicorn.
Rich embraces the fun challenge of writing music for kids, delighting in the creative freedom that comes with it. “When you are writing music for kid’s TV or movies, you need to work with multiple genres, depending on the situation, setting and storyline,” he says. “So, you have to be versatile, broad based and open minded. I love that I can use so many different musical styles in my work.”
Rich didn’t originally set out to compose for kids. He initially found success in New York in the 1980s as the leader of the rock band Crosswind, opening for acts including Joan Jett, The Hooters, Southside Johnny, Winger and Sheryl Crow.
From there, he moved to Los Angeles and began work as music supervisor for feature films. Rich also served as VP of Music for the animated internet web network Icebox.com where he worked with many composers, produced the music for the shows and wrote theme songs.
He went on to score and write songs for the Scooby Doo franchise. When Rich was asked to write the theme song for the TV series What’s New Scooby Doo?, it was a natural segue to move full time to composing.
Rich is mindful that the central message of Zoonicorn, optimism and resilience, needs to be reflected in the show’s music. “We strive to make the music on Zoonicorn unique to the show,” Rich says. “We don’t want it to sound like other kids shows. We go into it thinking, ‘this needs to be different.’”
Once he has the tracks down, he shares what he’s come up with the rest of the creative team, including executive producer/director J’net Smith, head writer Mark Zaslove and executive producer and consultant Deb Pierson. From that point, polishing the work becomes a collaborative process.
Take a listen to the Zoonicorn theme song at the link here.