![]() Mike: Believe it or not, those are rappers. Definitely sounds better with her voice.īob: So who is the voice behind the famous, “Bill, Bill, Bill” I was told at the time that Bill wanted to replace her with his voice, because he thought it was weird in the open that he was mouthing her words, but I guess everybody else liked it as is. The woman who says, “Science rules” and “Inertia is a property of matter” is a very talented actress and voiceover artist named Leslie Wilson. It’s funnier.” I thought, “My voice is funnier? Good thing I’m not touchy about my singing!” So we kept my voice on there. Then I sent those versions to Jim and Erren, and they said, “Why have you got them on it? We want your voice. Then as another option, I hired a girl to sing it to give it a bit more R&B kind of sound. He had like a rock‑and‑roll kind of voice, so it sounded pretty slick. I hired a guy to sing it who sounded pretty cool. After they approved it, I hired singers because I wanted to make it better. I used my voice for the first demo to send to the producers, Jim and Erren. A sampler lets you play recordings back on your keyboard, so whenever I hit that one key, it plays the guitar riff. So I started riffing on guitar until I came up with this one line and recorded it onto my sampler. Kinda rocky, but with a weird bizarre melody. Later I thought what might be kind of cool would be a guitar part. The little twirl on the “Science Guy.” I thought that sounded kind of Oingo Boingo‑ish. The melody sounds like something that Danny Elfman from “Oingo Boingo” would sing. But you know what? Now that I think about it, the first thing I came up with, I think, might have been the main melody, “Bill Nye the Science Guy.” I started thinking of Oingo Boingo. Mike: Well I’ve done tons of dance beats and bass lines. They wanted to go as far away from cheesy or safe as they could get.īob: So how did you end up approaching the theme with that kind of guidance? It was much more common to have a song that would be like, ‘”Bill Nye’s gonna teach you some science.” Something that’s a little bit cheesier. They wanted it to be something that was adventurous and a little bit more daring than what a theme song, at that time, would be. They didn’t want to make it sound like stuff that’s already been done. They didn’t want it to be safe, basically. Mike: The thing that they told me was they did not want it to sounds like a kid’s theme song. When you get the call, what did they tell you they were looking for? What kind of guidance did you get? It’s one of those things that just kind of brings a smile to most people’s faces if I say, “Oh, yeah, I wrote the ‘Bill Nye the Science Guy’ theme.”īob: Let’s go back to 1992. There was nobody who didn’t like Bill Nye the Science Guy. Certainly you can tell that it wasn’t written today. It’s lucky that, in many ways, the song holds up because there are a lot of times that you do a theme song and the song, five or ten years later, sounds dated. Mike: You know, I always liked that song. “It’s been months.” So we took a listen.īob: So, as you’re listening to the theme, what is going through your head? I asked Mike when the last time was that he heard the theme. He’s the guy who wrote and scored the theme into the conscience of young scientists around the world. But if there was a Hall of Fame for theme songs, an almost certain inductee would be the theme to “Bill Nye The Science Guy.” So who wrote the music? Who’s voice chants, “Bill! Bill! Bill!” and how did a children’s science show end up with such a funky, off the wall theme? It turns out the man with the answers is a music writer, and former math teacher, named Mike Greene. Take a listen:įew shows have managed to have an epic theme song that stands the test of time think Gilligan’s Island, The Brady Bunch, Friends. But the show, and perhaps even more so, the theme music, lives on. The hugely popular children’s science show has not aired an original episode in, get this, almost 15 years. ![]() It turns out most people I know recall at least part of the theme song for, “Bill Nye The Science Guy,” and they aren’t afraid to sing it. Just days later, I heard that same familiar tune emanating as a ring tone from the cellphone of a good friend, except he’s 25. What happened next was remarkable it was as if a part of their 8 year old brain had been triggered by an electrical probe and they immediately began chanting, “Bill Nye the Science Guy” in a familiar melody while moving their body to a non-existent house beat. “What are we watching?’ asked one student as he sat down with a thud. The teacher is loading a DVD into her laptop hooked up to a projector emerging from the ceiling. In an elementary school in a Boston suburb, a group of third graders enters a classroom after lunch.
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