Why You Should Mashup Your Favorite Music To Genndy Tartakovsky's Star Wars the Clone Wars

Mace Windu is a different breed in this show

Okay Hear Me Out!

I haven’t done this in years, but I wanted to share my exclusive wisdom around mashing up cartoons with random music.

It happened years ago in my laboratory when I was working on a highly volatile chemical mixture. I knocked over a bubbling beaker all over my laptop and something strange started happening. My computer started playing Johnny Bravo muted along with random Earl Sweatshirt songs. And the two started to somehow… blend … the narrative of the show and the content of the song blurring together. Pretty soon Johnny Bravo’s wacky escapades with a catfishing deer became a strange video concept album like The Lonely Island’s The Unauthorized Bash Brothers Experience or Janelle Monae’s Dirty Computer.

What was so stimulating was all the synchronicities that occurred as the two mediums spontaneously mixed. Sometimes character’s mouths would move along, seemingly with the lyrics. Often the editing of the video would match the rhythm and transitions of the music. And what I found really exciting was when the lyrical content seemed to comment on what we were seeing, like an alternative narrative or musical commentary. The experience was fleeting though, as the more music I played, the less frequent the matching apparently was.

I edited a few videos together to contrive a story and to humor myself, but I wanted to rediscover that consistent spontaneous syncing. Then one night, at a very low-key party (remember parties?,) I tried matching songs with Genndy Tartakovesky’s Star Wars Clone Wars (2003.) If you’re not familiar with the limited series that aired before the release of Revenge of the Sith (2005,) you may be familiar with Tartakovesky’s signature look from Dexter’s Laboratory, Samurai Jack or Primal.

It was perfect.

We put on jazz, pop, classical, punk and whatever genre Rick Astley is. Almost every mash-up seemed like it could be it’s own standalone music video. It soon turned into a game, each of us taking turns putting on wildly different tunes and Recontextualizing these much beloved action scenes, watching Palpatine sing Death Cab for Cutie or epic lightsaber battles to the smooth sounds of Frank Sinatra. And if we got bored with it, we could just leave it on in the background like a yule log until someone else would walk in asking, “What the hell are you guys doing?”

Star Wars Clone Wars is a largely non-verbal show, and without the crutch of expositional dialogue, the show relies on a pacing and editing that very much has a musical rhythm, which I think lends itself to this method of spontaneous syncing. And as someone who gets distracted when listening to new music, I find this to be a very effective way to really engage and critically listen to familiar and unfamiliar music.

Try it Out!

It’s super simple.

Just mute the cartoons and play your tunes.

If you encounter a long talking scene or a song aint working go ahead and skip ahead. It’s your schedule yo.

I made a little playlist with local musicians below if you wanna start off with some of those.

Otherwise, have fun and let us know in the comments if you found any particularly good mashups you like! Now go off and score some cartoons my little Angelo Badalamenti.

The first three bands on the playlist (Senseless optimism, Subpunch and Inspector 34) will be featured in a pre-recorded Martian radio digital show! Follow us on Instagram and Facebook to get the latest scoop.

Highlight: General Grievous Battle

To the tunes of a tribe called red and the screaming females.