Earlier Version of the Invader ZiM Theme Song

READ HOW THIS EFFING HORRIBLE ZIM-THEME CAME TO BE!!

Jhonen Vasquez's input - "Back when I had just moved to L.A. to work on the show bible and then immediately the pilot, I had a friend named Mark Tortorici come up with some ideas for the theme, and we eventually settled on a particular direction for it. Mark came out to stay with me in my Los Angeles hovel for a bit once the pilot was being animated and did a more complete version that is, more or less, the music you know now. So Mark is the guy that came up with that ZIM theme, doing the original demo on the Alesis QS7 I had at the time, using Cubase. We ended up with a really messy, very demo tape sounding piece that worked just fine for those early days.

What ended up happening for the full production of the pilot's musical side, however, was that Mark was busy fighting bears back home, or doing terribly amazing things that made doing music for my lil teevee show not an attractive future for him, so I had him killed. End of his story...sort of.

Needing a more dedicated composer for the pilot episode, we had to seek out professional composers with no bear-related aspirations and distractions, ultimately coming upon Michael Tavera, whose music is what you would now hear throughout that silly old pilot episode. I recall him being a nice guy, but we were not a great fit for one another, creatively, and I recall always asking for various tracks to be killed until, ultimately, we ended up with not even half of what he would submit. It was definitely a more "children's television" sound, much more traditional and not as surprising as I would want in the future, but it worked for the pilot. As it turned out, Mark's theme song, nor Michael's cover version, never even made it into the pilot as we had no credit sequence to drop it into

But here's Michael's version, or one of them. I recall the crew having a pretty good laugh at just how cheesy this take on the theme was. Not in a cruel, despicable way, mind you -- Tavera had was simply submitting a take on the show based on very little information on it beforehand. The second I heard those sampled "ZIM"s in there, I just lost it. Thing is, it's so much slicker and kiddie show sounding than anything I could ever have imagined for the show. The thought of this preceding every episode, acting as a terribly inappropriate lead-in to organ harvesting and screaming children is amusing enough.



Funny, yeah? Well, I think it is? What, you don't? Then get out of my car, dammit. Why are you and I even friends?

Anyhow, like with almost everything in that pilot, Tavera didn't end up being part of the series that followed. Again, not because of a lack of talent or anything like that. Really, it's just the maddening nature of trying to find other human beings who feel like a natural fit for something that exists almost entirely in your head, and the list of incredibly skilled and talented individuals that come and go on a production can just trail on for miles. Hell, there are versions of the pilot out there where other actors supplied ZIM's voice, including Billy West and Mark Hamill! Both did great jobs, but Richard was the particular idiot that I played well with for that job, and he's the one that got pulled into my hell on the series, that lucky bastard.

Of course, the version most of you would recognize is neither Mark's nor Michael's, it's Kevin Manthei's take on it, the composer for the entire, teensy run of ZIM's life. Mark actually came back in to work with Kevin on keeping the spirit of the thing, but was called back to the bay area by his primal desire to do battle with bears again or whatever. Who knows, really."

He found it on his computer and thought he would share some Zim-history

Category:

Music

Tags:

• invader
• ZIM
• theme

[cupcakeXmasquerade]

Because it's not like Zim says his name enough in the show, now we've got a whole song of it.

[Min0rguy]

This theme would fit on a diffirent version of Invader Zim. Like a show about when he was a kid on his home planet.

[egyptiancobra22]

Zim must REALLY like his name

[Marshmellow2002]

*GASP!!* Zim doesn't have

[travisplatypus]

He does not have his PAK in this photo. It does not matter as he can only survive ten minutes without his PAK. This video was only 1 minute and 3 seconds. He still has alot of time to get his PAK back on.

[XXXWarriorCats]

Am I the only one that thinks this sounds like a cross between Invader ZIM and Rugrats?

[tetra1219]

weird...the people saying, 'zim' during the song scares me, especially at the end...

[tetra1219]

I like the other version better

[candyapple790]

It's kinda weird because there just standing there but Gir is FOREVER CUTE!!!!

[invaderzadr21]

Give me the lyrics!

[PinkPistol92]

They should have played this at the beginning of one of the episodes...just to kind of poke fun at it....it would have thrown so many people off...

[jay7missprophet]

not as hard core as the original, and even if they did use this version it'd be kind of unfitting to the dark theme of the show