Later Career
Starting in 1978, John wrote the music for the animated special The Devil and Daniel Mouse, and even provided the singing voice for the character of Daniel Mouse. In the 1980s, Sebastian continued to write and perform music for several productions from Nelvana Limited Productions, a reputable Canada-based animation studio whose more recent output included the TV series Braceface, which starred—and was jointly produced by—Alicia Silverstone, and the same studio which produced The Devil and Daniel Mouse. John wrote and sang the theme song/narration for Nelvana's TV pilot The Get Along Gang. (None of it was kept, however, when DIC Entertainment took over the project thereafter.) Sebastian also composed and performed "Care Bear Countdown," the theme song for Nelvana's Care Bears TV series, along with numerous tunes for the The Care Bears Movie trilogy which preceded it; this consisted of Care Bears Movie 2: A New Generation and The Care Bears Adventure in Wonderland.
In later years, Sebastian hosted several television programs regarding '60s' music, including paid programs for compilations sets and a half-hour program called The Golden Age of Rock and Roll, which was usually composed of video footage of 1960s bands performing on variety shows. He also hosted a Spoonful retrospective broadcast over PBS in March 2007, talking about various Spoonful numbers in between vintage video clips of the band up to the time he left.
In 1992 Sebastian made a cameo appearance on the sitcom Married...with Children, together with other famous rockstars. In 2005, he appeared on Eels' Blinking Lights and Other Revelations.
In 2007, Sebastian released a guitar instructional DVD for Homespun Video teaching solo guitar adaptations of eight of his Spoonful hits including "Daydream," "Nashville Cats," and his solo hit "Welcome Back." He has also released an instructional DVD teaching beginning level autoharp. (Sebastian played both harmonica and autoharp on Shanachie's 2002 compilation CD "Man of Constant Sorrow.")
Sebastian and the J Band appear in Chasin' Gus' Ghost, a documentary about the roots and influence of jug band music, which screened in August 2007 at the San Francisco Jug Band Festival and made its film festival debut in October 2007 at the Woodstock Film Festival. In the film, Sebastian humorously explains, with musical accompaniment, how his hit song "Younger Girl" was inspired by Gus Cannon's "Prison Wall Blues." He also performed at the festival with other musicians featured in the film, including Geoff Muldaur, Maria Muldaur, Jim Kweskin and David Grisman.
He was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 2008.
Stories We Could Tell, the title of a novel by British writer Tony Parsons, comes from the Sebastian song.
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