The credits sequences sorted in order of debut (from top to bottom): Wizard, Music, Painting, Programmer, Phone, Voiceover and Cheering.
Every game includes a credits sequence accessible from the options menu. In most cases, these credits sequences not only list off the people who worked on the game, but also include an animation to accompany it. These animations were all animated by the late Don Albrecht and many appear across multiple games in the series, and they are related to the current list of people displayed. They also all use a jazz score for the background music composed by Joey Edelman (who composed all the piano parts, while Mark Sowlakis performed the clarinet and Marty Wehner performed the trombone), and this in turn was usually included in its entirety as a bonus CD audio track. Four games in the series have a unique set of credits (more on that below). The credits sequences are listed in order of which they first debuted.
A wizard attempts to create a dog out of nothing, but at first struggles making anything at all, then makes a rat but is dissatisfied, then morphs it to a chicken. Still frustrated, he tries one more time, and is successful at making a dog. However, as he is giving an aside for his accomplishment, the dog morphs into a large dragon unbeknownst to him. The dragon pulls the wizard's sleeve to get his attention, which completely scares the wizard and leads to him fainting. The dragon simply gives an aside glance, chuckling.
This credit sequence has no real consistency on who it includes; in most of the Living Books games it appears in, it mostly includes either the production staff or artistic direction, but in a couple of games it may also include the sound team (i.e. music, sound engineers, and/or voice actors) or programming team. Because of this, it is considered to be a "wild credits sequence".
A pianist, a trombone player, and a double bass player all prepare to play the jazz score that accompanies the credits, with a one-man-band on the far right occasionally interrupting with cartoonish noises. The one-man-band is equipped with a whole slew of instruments, such as a saxophone, a bass drum, a bike horn, a cow bell, and even a green bird. After multiple interruptions occur, he finishes off by shooting a pistol. This is followed by glass breaking in the distance, shocking the other musicians.
This sequence is almost always accompanied by the sound team, including music (which this animation mainly represents), sound engineers, and voice actors. It has by far the most appearances across the Living Books games.
NOTE: Games that this animation was not originally included on are marked with an asterisk (*).
Painting[]
Painting
A male and female artist are painting a red triangle and a green circle, respectively. The male painter mistakenly flings some of his to the female painter, which the female painter strikes back in retaliation by intentionally flinging her red paint back onto his green paint. This fight goes on for some time, until it eventually ends with them splashing their paint buckets on each other's canvases. However, their red triangle and green circle both shows up again afterwards, with each taking notice. They are both pleased by this, and shake hands.
This is almost always used when the artistic team is being listed off.
NOTE: Games that this animation wasn’t originally included on are marked with an asterisk (*).
Programmer[]
Programmer
A programmer sits in front of his computer, starting to type away. A bunch of nonsense code starts to appear above, but he takes it too far away and the cords turn burning red, causing the computer to overheat, overload, and eventually explode and fall apart (in a cartoonish fashion). In the aftermath, a cube lands on the programmer's head, then he is exasperated as the computer's screen starts blinking red within its electrical buzzing noises. (In Arthur's Teacher Trouble, there is a slightly longer ending where the programmer glances at the player and chuckles "b-huh" in a sad tone.)
This scene is typically accompanied with the programming team.
NOTE: Games that this animation wasn’t originally included on are marked with an asterisk (*). Games in which this animation lacks the ceiling crash sound effect are marked with a flag (⚑).
Phone[]
Phone
A worker is taking in calls from two phones at the same time, all while a group of people open the door to his left and start tossing him all sorts of shapes, all while he begins to juggle them. After the group of people leave, the worker tosses his shapes up into the air, and starts catching all of the falling shapes and stacking them up onto his finger. After that, the worker gives an aside glance and waves his arm out, with one phone hanging on his arm and ringing.
This is an obvious visual representation of what working on the production staff can feel like, showing how many things they can have to worry about at once. Likewise, the production staff is usually featured whenever this one comes up. It is one of the least used credits animations in the Living Books games, due to the production staff credits usually being taken up by the Wizard and Painting animations majority of the time.
A director with recording equipment for a voiceover session holds a microphone up to a lady, who then screams very loud and blows the director's headphones away, making the volume meter on the recording machine break the volume scale with bursting sound waves. The headphones fling back onto the director's head in boomerang motion, who then then decides to do a sound test on a kitty cat who is sleeping. The lady then steps on the cat's tail, making the cat screech and run off the screen, hence the volume meter on the recording machine reaching the perfect volume that doesn't break the volume limit. The director then makes an "okay" sign with his finger to show approval to the lady. He then gives an aside glance and raises his eyebrows.
Like the Music animation, this sequence is solely accompanied by the sound team, including music, sound engineers, and voice actors. It ranks the least number of appearances in the Living Books games, having only ever appeared in one game (due to the voice actors, which this animation mostly represents, having always been listed off often in the Music animation).
Seven people stand in a line facing the screen, all cheering. At the end of the animation, within a few seconds, the blonde woman on the far left accidentally lets go of a balloon and it pops, startling everyone.
This is used to show the remaining members not already covered in other sections, like quality assurance and special thanks (because of this, it is always succeeded by the Music animation). Like the Phone animation, this is another one of the least used credits animations across the Living Books games, due to said remaining members already covered often in the Programmer or Music animations in most games.
Ruff's Bone: On the left the credits roll, and Ruff sits underneath them, while on the right there are four picture portraits with a member of the development team appearing on each picture. The game's usual title theme substitutes Joey Edelman's jazz score.
Green Eggs and Ham: While Joey Edelman's score is used for this sequence, the animations are substituted for a storyboard sequence of every page, but does borrow the score heard from the Wizard, Painting, and Music animations. The piano intro to the Music animation's tune is also left intact (with the cellist's line "All right!" also still intact as well).
Arthur's Computer Adventure: The credits are placed in front of a Deep Dark Sea background. The music from the Deep Dark Sea mini-game also substitutes Joey Edelman's jazz score.
D.W. the Picky Eater: The credits scroll in front of the page from the book where D.W. is peeking over the dinner table, with various music from the game (the title page theme and the music from two of the mini-games "Gopher Squirting" and "Family Picnic") playing in the background. The game's usual title theme substitutes Joey Edelman's jazz score.
Trivia[]
It is implied that all the credits animations (possibly except the Voiceover one which came later) were made during production on Just Grandma and Me so that the producers of the Living Books games could take the animations and make up a random pattern of credits sequences for each game (listed in the next section below).
The Phone, Voiceover and Cheering animations rank the least number of appearances in the Living Books games, due to their associated staff credits often being taken up by the first four credits animations (Wizard, Music, Painting, and Programmer) in most of the games.
Additionally, the Voiceover animation was the scarcest for only appearing once on the Philips CD-i version of Little Monster at School, has never made it into any of the Windows/Macintosh computer versions of said game, and never returned in any other Living Books game's credits. Because of this, the Voiceover animation has been elusive for pretty long until it was recovered by a YouTuber GeorgeQGreg, and subsequently uploaded by ARemoteAndRandomName (video provided below).
Along with this, the Painting and Programmer animations are the second ones to have the most appearances in the games, behind the Music animation.
Not counting Arthur's Birthday V2, The Cat in the Hat is the last Living Books game to use the traditional jazz credits animations, including the Phone, Painting, Programmer, Music, and Cheering animations.
While most of the credits animations were produced in 512x384, the Voiceover one was exclusively produced in 320x200 resolution due to only appearing on the Philips CD-i version of Little Monster at School (which uses a 320x200 or 384x240 resolution).
Additionally, the Wizard, Music and Painting animations are the only other animations to be available in the 320x240 resolution (albeit with a few animation/graphics differences), having appeared in the Philips CD-i version of said game and the Tandy VIS version of Just Grandma and Me.
When the dragon scared the wizard, the wizard's skin was changing from dark to white. The wizard's scream was silent as the music was playing in the way, although his mouth opens as if he had actually screamed.
In the Cheering animation, the people's cheering was silent as the music was playing in the way, although they move as if they are actually cheering.
Living Books Credits Music (1992 variant)
The original variants of the credits music.
In the first two games Just Grandma and Me (V1) and Arthur's Teacher Trouble, the Wizard, Music, Painting and Programmer animations had several sound differences (including louder cymbal instruments), along with minor graphic differences, compared to the usual versions seen in later games.
In the credits for Just Grandma and Me, the Wizard animation's music was composed at a different session, where not only the piano instrumentation had a different quality, but also the main piano track was lower in volume amplification, faded into the background and barely able to be heard, making the background instruments much louder than the main piano track. This was corrected in the credits for the The Tortoise and the Hareonward (and even for the UK release of Just Grandma and Me). There is also a goof where the mouse disappears in one frame when the wizard turns him into a chicken. There is also a longer ending where the dragon opens his eyelids a bit more after three seconds of silence.
The original version of the wizard animation is still on Just Grandma and Me V2 and the Hebrew dub of the game (though the animation is shifted to the right).
The longer ending of silence was also used in The Tortoise and the Hare, minus the bit of the dragon opening his eyelids a bit more.
In the original version of the Music animation as seen in Just Grandma and Me V1, the trombonist wears a lighter-green shirt and the cellist wears light-purple pants. There is a slightly longer beginning showing the pianist lifting his arms to prepare for playing the piano (like how the Programmer does before typing). The piano intro also had different quality to the music, the cellist's "All right!" line was a separate audio sample not mixed with the piano intro (hence cutting off the piano music when he says his line), and the trombonist was playing a tune that had the same arrangement as the Programmer animation. In all the other games (even in Just Grandma and Me V2), this type of trombone tune (being like the tune from the Programmer) was no longer used– the trombonist instead plays the main tune of the Living Books Credits song that was used in the Phone animation. Also, Just Grandma and Me V2 is the only appearance of the one man band's whistle (other appearances have the sound, but no whistle prop to go with it).
In Arthur's Teacher Trouble, the music in the Painting animation was rendered at a different session, where the background instruments (behind the clarinet) had different quality to the music. The animation was also slightly sped up (like in a similar way to where your PC takes a bit to buffer up and the animation tries to catch up to sync in with the sound).
The original version of the Programmer animation had the beginning portion of the animation shortened down. The first piece of the music is also cut (much like how the Music animation's tune plays out), but the final piece (which was cut on the CD audio track and in later games) was included this time, which can be heard if you find a way to pause the animation to let the entire sound play (more on that below). At the end after the computer stops making electric zapping sounds, the programmer looks at the viewer with a sad look on his face and says "b-huh" in a sad tone. He doesn't say this in any future games that used this credits animation.
In the original version of the Phone animation, there is a longer ending where the worker's phone hanging on his arm is still ringing. This was done to make way for the music to finish playing through the animation.
On the CD audio tracks for Just Grandma and Me (V1) and Arthur's Teacher Trouble, the current variant of the Living Books credits theme (as heard in later games) was oddly used, instead of the early variant of the credits theme that was heard in the actual games. This results in the early variant being only available in low audio quality.
For an unknown reason, as early versions of the Living Books Credits animations from the first two games were phased out by the time both The Tortoise and the Hare and The New Kid on the Block were released, a clarinet version of the Programmer tune was never composed. It is unknown if it was never composed in the first place, or if it was actually composed but appears unused in a credits sequence.
Despite this, the Voiceover animation oddly doesn't have a tune of its own composed– it just uses a combination of instrumentals from other credits sequences: It uses the one from Wizard, then Programmer, thirdly Phone, and finally a merge of the clarinet/piano/trombone.
A reconstruction of the aforementioned clarinet version of the Programmer tune was composed by a YouTuber for the Voiceover animation, with an attempt of using MIDI tools for the clarinet instrument, backed with some background piano instrumental and rhythmic cymbals ripped from the CD audio track with an AI audio splitter.
In The New Kid on the Block, the Programmer and Music animations also have a variation as follows:
The Programmer animation's intro was cut and treated just like in Arthur's Teacher Trouble, except with only the entire 1st piece of the song playing without the 2nd or 3rd pieces. When the computer made electrical buzzing noises at the end, one frame of the Programmer's mouth showing his teeth was erroneously stretched extremely out of scale.
The Music animation uses the main tune of the Living Books credits from the Phone animation for the first time, but the 3rd piece was oddly used in place of the 1st piece, making the 3rd piece accidentally used twice.
In Arthur's Teacher Trouble, the ceiling crash sound effect is intact, but cut off by the "boing" sound effect due to the computer exploding sound effect (with which the ceiling crash sound effect was actually part of) having ran for longer than the animation (this was before the other games fixed it by letting the animation pause and wait for the animation to finish). However, there's two ways to hear the crash sound effect in this game:
If you play the game on ScummVM, you can hear the sound effects still playing past the animation pause point, hence merging in other sound effects at the same time instead of cutting them off.
If you play it on an older pre-OS 9 Mac computer, you would have to click and hold the window bar at the top screen to pause the animation and wait for the sound effect to finish.
In Stellaluna, Arthur's Reading Race and The Cat in the Hat, the Programmer scene has the code typed out a little differently, and even adding to the end "error core dumped..." to show the person overheating the computer and the guy reacts as the computer is shaking, and when the computer blows up, the code blinks slightly before disappearing, and the ceiling crash sound is used after the programmer covers his head. This makes it seem like he looked up to see the crash before the cube bounces off his head.
In the credits for Little Monster at School (PC/Mac versions), the ending of the Painting animation is shortened down, making the two artists shake hands only twice.
When the wizard first throws his wand to the surface, there is a small dot on his uniform beneath his face, then the dot disappears after he frowns before trying to hit the wand some more.
When the wizard spins his wand around after creating a chicken, he raises his eyebrows twice.
In the UK, German and French versions of some games, his eyebrows stay up after he raises them once. However, in the German and French dubs of Just Grandma and Me, his arm spinning the wand clicks twice and he raises his eyebrows very slowly.
After the one-man-band pulls the parrot's tail and when the parrot glares at him, the parrot's sad eye expressions blink back and forth while it steps away from the one-man-band.
In the credits for Little Monster at School (PC/Mac versions) and Arthur's Birthday, at one point in the Programmer animation when the guy keeps typing on his computer, the following graphic/color errors occurred:
The computer's wires turned dark blue instead of red.
In some shots, blue-green spots flash on the the guy's white shirt sleeves. After the computer explodes, the guy's entire white shirt turns blue-green which persists through the remainder of the animation (fixed in V2 of Arthur's Birthday).
The computer's wires and monitor were also blue green (the ceiling-crash sound effect from the credits in later games was used for the first time without being cut off).
When the computer's monitor was blinking in front of the guy's face after he lies down on his desk, the shining from the computer's blinking red monitor in front of the guy's face was blue instead of red.
In The Berenstain Bears Get in a Fight version of the Music animation, the silent portion of the beginning with no audio was cut (jumping immediately to the pianist already playing the piano), the animation of the musicians performing the tune was slightly different, the trombonist was stepping back very slowly when the one band man was about to pull out the pop-up gun, the musicians do not jump out in shock until after a few seconds of the glass breaking, and the parrot remains shocked throughout the entire end.
The parrot also kept this expression throughout the entire end of the credits in the Tandy VIS version of Just Grandma and Me as well.
The Tortoise and the Hare and The Berenstain Bears Get in a Fight for some reason do not sort the credits animation sequences in the proper order (In the former, Wizard is placed after Phone when usually Wizard was meant to come first in the order of all credits animations, given by how Programmer, Music and Cheering by order of instrumental are sorted properly in the later games; In the latter, Painting appears after Music, which is clearly an incorrect order due to how UK releases of some games have the two animations sorted in the proper order as stated above). Additionally, for the latter game, the Painting animation lists the voice actors, quality assurance, and special thanks– which that animation doesn't represent.
In all earlier games that utilize IBM files, the credits sequences are navigable by arrow keys (the same thing applies to the opening intros of the games as well). All games that use the Mohawk engine starting with Dr. Seuss' ABC onward (with the exception of Arthur's Computer Adventure and the updated versions of Just Grandma and Me and Arthur's Birthday), even international versions of most of the previous games (which also use the Mohawk engine in this case), are programmed to disable direct navigation between all intro and credits sequences (the only way to navigate them is alternatively by hitting the Alt key to access the menu bar and using the "Next Page" and "Previous Page" buttons from there; the menu bar is only accessible on any games that have the "A Brøderbund Company"/"Brøderbund Software, Inc." byline in the intro).
Videos[]
Living Books Credits (All Animation Sequences, Textless Full Versions)
All the credits sequences in their full, extended forms.
Living Books Credits (All Animation Sequences, Textless Full Versions) -alternate version-
The credits sequences with different animation graphics, seen in "Arthur's Birthday" and PC/Mac editions of "Little Monster at School".
A Rare Credits Sequence
The rare Voiceover credits sequence from the CD-i port of Little Monster at School, found by GeorgeQGreg
Credits sequences used[]
Sequences
Used in
Wizard, Music
Just Grandma and Me (V1 only)
Painting, Programmer
Arthur's Teacher Trouble
Phone, Wizard
The Tortoise and the Hare
Programmer, Music
The New Kid on the Block
Painting, Voiceover
Little Monster at School (Philips CD-i port only)
Painting, Programmer, Music
Little Monster at School Harry and the Haunted House Dr. Seuss' ABC
Wizard, Programmer, Music
Arthur's Birthday Just Grandma and Me (V2 only)
Music, Painting
The Berenstain Bears Get in a Fight
Painting, Music
Only used in UK/German/French versions of: Little Monster at School
Arthur's Birthday Harry and the Haunted House Sheila Rae, the Brave
Wizard, Painting, Music
Sheila Rae, the Brave The Berenstain Bears in the Dark Green Eggs & Ham (used as audio under the storyboards, with no sound effects)
Painting, Wizard, Music
Sheila Rae, the Brave (Italian dub only; the order of Wizard and Painting was accidentally reversed on this release)
