‘Scooby-Doo’ Legend Dies After Alzheimer’s Diagnosis: Ted Nichols Was 97

Scooby-Doo legend Ted Nichols has died at 97.

The famed Hanna-Barbera composer passed away on Jan. 9 in hospice care in Auburn, Washington, following a long battle with Alzheimer’s, his daughter, Karen Tolleshaug, told THR.

Theodore Nicholas Sflotsos was born on Oct. 2, 1928, in Missoula, Montana. He moved to Spokane, Washington, with his parents and started playing the violin at age 10. After graduating from high school, Nichols joined the U.S. Navy in 1946, performing in a swing band based in Corpus Christi, Texas. During the Korean War, he was commanding officer of the U.S. Air Force Bandsmen Training School and recruited musicians from Juilliard and other schools.

Nichols earned music degrees from Baylor University and Texas A&I, later teaching at a public school in Corpus Christi, where he directed a youth symphony. He moved to California and directed the band at Santa Ana Junior College. From 1958 to 1960, Nichols sang with the Dapper Dans of Disneyland. He met Hanna-Barbera co-founder William Hanna while working as minister of music at the Church of the Open Door in Glendora, California.

In 1964, Nichols teamed up with fellow legendary Hanna-Barbera composer Hoyt Curtin, to write the score for adventure cartoon Johnny Quest. After Curtin left the company in 1965, Nichols became the primary musical director. He went on to work on a handful of Hanna-Barbera titles, including Space Ghost, The Herculoids, The Fantastic Four, Josie and the Pussycats, The Pebbles and Bam-Bam Show, and live-action series The New Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.

He is best known for The Flintstones, composing the score for the sixth and final season of the original primetime run of The Flintstones on ABC from 1965 to 1966. He also composed the score for the 1966 feature film The Man Called Flintstone. Nichols is also best known for his work on Scooby-Doo, Where Are You!, which premiered in September 1969 as part of CBS’ Saturday mornings lineup. Nichols ended up leaving Hanna-Barbera to write operas and gospel works. He also served as the musical director of Campus Crusade for Christ, organizing music groups for kids.

“Ted’s music bridged the transition between science-fiction and slapstick programming on Saturday morning as demands for greater social control and regulation of media violence surged in the wake of Martin Luther King Jr.’s and Robert Kennedy’s assassinations of 1968,” Kevin Sandler, co-editor of the 2024 book Hanna and Barbera Conversations, said in a statement to THR. “He used less brass and more high woodwinds and violins in his instrumentation for Scooby-Doo and other comedy series to achieve a less intense, funnier sound.”

Ted Nichols is survived by his daughter, Karen, and his son, David; grandchildren Tawny, Kevin, Brian, Alex, Carson, and Cammie; and six great-granddaughters.