Finding the Right ‘Witchy’ Tune

Songwriting team Robert Lopez and Kristen Anderson-Lopez discuss their television theme song inspirations for WandaVision’s original music

Songwriting duo Kristen Anderson-Lopez and Robert Lopez were nominated for Emmys this season for WandaVision’s main title theme music and song, “Agatha All Along” — which in the Marvel/ Disney+ series reveals that nosy neighbor Agnes, played by Kathryn Hahn, actually was the witch Agatha Harkness … all along.

The story is set in a world where the characters live in decades of TV sitcoms, and as such, “All of the songs were sort of conceived by the writers because they knew the style of songs they wanted for all the intros through the decades,” explains Lopez. “The one that they had written for that episode was called ‘That’s So Agatha.’ I guess the idea [was] kind of like That’s So Raven.

We sort of struggled with that, [though] we loved the title.”

They tried another approach — with Marlo Thomas’ That Girl in mind — before landing on the eventual song, which AndersonLopez says came to her during a restless night. “I think at 3 in the morning one day, I was like, ‘We should look at The Addams Family and The Munsters,’ ” she recalls. “We should go to that

witchy kind of place that TV does have history in. [That morning,] I ran into the shower, and I think I came out of the shower and the lyrics were written.” She also knew she wanted to include what she describes as “Oompa Loompa voices … that ’60s male chorus thing.”

Dave Metzger (Frozen) handled music arrangement and orchestration, and then Hahn recorded her vocals over Zoom. “There was so much personality coming out of the screen, it was just insane,” says Lopez. “She really nailed it.”

The songwriters have won Oscars for “Let It Go” from Frozen and Coco’s “Remember Me” — plus Grammys for “Let It Go” and the Frozen soundtrack. Lopez also won a pair of Daytime Emmys for Wonder Pets and Tony Awards for Avenue Q and The Book of Mormon, as well as an additional Grammy Award for the latter. An Emmy win in September would put Anderson-Lopez one

Tony away from joining her husband and collaborator with EGOT status.

“It’s not on my mind all the time, no,” she says when reminded of this fact. “The wonderful thing about being a songwriter is that we get to keep growing and playing in these different sandboxes. We can go from theater to film to TV, which gives us this opportunity to cross award lines.”

That Lopez already achieved EGOT status doesn’t put any strains on their partnership. “I happen to live with the only living double EGOT, and I know that on one hand it’s a huge honor — and on the other hand, he still has to empty the dishwasher every day,” AndersonLopez says with a laugh. “I know how impossible it is to achieve EGOT status and that my husband has done the impossible twice. I don’t hold myself to that level of perfection. It would make me crazy.”

1-2 Costume designer Rubeo incorporated a cameo brooch in Agnes/Agatha’s outfits as a running motif. The image on the brooch is of the Three Graces, which in Greek mythology are daughters of Zeus. “Witches come in threes,” Rubeo says of the piece of jewelry that offered a hint in the comics to Agnes’ true identity. 3-4 Although the first two episodes were shot in black-and-white, Rubeo had to make sure the shades of Wanda’s and Vision’s costumes would contrast against the set. “Every piece of fabric I brought went through the same process,” she says with a laugh, revealing her technical secret: “I took a picture on my iPhone and put it through the Mono filter.”