The TV Academy has put the final nail in the TV theme song coffin, quoth Variety.
Now that the once vibrant slice of pop culture -- who doesn't still know the words to the themes from Gilligan's Island or The Brady Bunch? -- has mostly disappeared from primetime, the Emmy category honoring main title songs is following suit.
The Academy announced Monday that the main title theme category would be eliminated effective next year, and replaced by the new "music composition for a non-fiction program" award.
"This change was made due to the decreasing number of traditional television main title theme music," the org said.
Indeed, TV themes virtually disappeared in the late 1990s, as networks experimented with ways to keep viewers from flipping channels. Just as they squeezed out closing credits, played with start and stop times (like last week's 9:28 p.m. scheduling of Glee) and worked to seamlessly blend from one show to the next, webheads also dramatically reduced opening credit segments -- or got rid of them all together.
The main title theme category ax was one of several rules changes announced by the Academy. But...
...the one with the music is the one under the spotlight here. To be honest, this isn't terribly surprising - increasing contempt for openings aside, the Emmys have had difficulties with theme tunes for a long time (ever since ATAS was founded, in fact) - in the book Inside Star Trek Robert H. Justman and Herbert F. Solow relate how the 1967 Emmys decided that Lalo Schifrin's work on Mission: Impossible wasn't worthy of a statuette (although Schifrin has won an Emmy, it wasn't for this), and indeed they didn't even give awards out for themes until 1993! So in "honour" of this occasion, and as another lament for the time when network TV shows had decent opening and closing tunes (it was not uncommon, for instance, for The A-Team to give Mike Post and Pete Carpenter's theme a lengthy workout, and the next time the pilot for Moonlighting is shown have a look at how the end credits give you a chance to hear the whole song!), all the Emmy-winning themes so far. I only wish The Simpsons or Twin Peaks could have been among the following...
1993: Star Trek: Deep Space Nine (Dennis McCarthy)
1994: seaQuest DSV (John Debney)
1995: Star Trek: Voyager (Jerry Goldsmith, his fifth and final Emmy)
1996: Murder One (Mike Post, his only Emmy to date - and why this is set to scenes of Gillian Anderson, I don't know)
1997: EZ Streets (Mark Isham - his end title music doesn't seem to be online anywhere, dammit)
1998: Fame L.A. (Robbie Buchanan, Maribeth Derry, Richard Barton Lewis and Tom Snow)
1999: Trinity (Martin Davich - no video available, apparently)
2000: The West Wing (W.G. Snuffy Walden)
2001: Gideon's Crossing (James Newton Howard)
2002: Six Feet Under (Thomas Newman)
2003: Monk (Jeff Beal)
2004: Monk, again (Randy Newman) - yes, this won for both its themes. Amazing.
2005: Desperate Housewives (Danny Elfman)
2006: Masters of Horror (Edward Shearmur)
2007: The Tudors (Trevor Morris)
2008: Pirate Master (Russ Landau)
2009: Great Performances (John Williams)
Showing posts with label TV themes. Show all posts
Showing posts with label TV themes. Show all posts
Tuesday, April 20, 2010
Tuesday, October 20, 2009
The Vic Mizzy Post.
Percepto posted on the FSM talkboards on the passing of Vic Mizzy, aged 93, on Saturday. And while everybody knows the tunes he's most famous for, a listen to Percepto's Suites and Themes CD (one of several albums they did with him) shows he did a lot more - which is why I'm sorry that his wistful Kentucky Jones doesn't seem to be online, and why I'm glad Film24's been known to run The Deadly Hunt and Terror On The 40th Floor (fine TV movies they are not, but they gave Mizzy a chance to show his dramatic side).
Now you know why he has the video spot this week. RIP.
http://www.filmmusicsociety.org/news_events/features/2009/101909.html
Now you know why he has the video spot this week. RIP.
http://www.filmmusicsociety.org/news_events/features/2009/101909.html
Friday, June 05, 2009
The Play That Truncated Music, White Boy Post.
Jon Burlingame in Variety:
Nearly 35 years ago, producers Thomas Miller and Edward Milkis put together a 20-minute presentation to convince ABC that two guest stars on Happy Days could be spun off into their own series.
They shot just a few new scenes of Penny Marshall and Cindy Williams as Laverne & Shirley but, recalls composer Charles Fox, they insisted on a 75-second main-title sequence with a fully produced song, "so, right from the beginning, people would know what it was about."
Fox and lyricist Norman Gimbel came up with "Making Our Dreams Come True." It became a top-25 hit -- one of many TV theme hits for Fox, who won an Emmy for Love, American Style and wrote themes for Happy Days, The Love Boat, Angie and others.
Today a composer is happy to get 10 seconds on a broadcast skein, and hit TV themes are rare.
Over the past 15 years, the broadcast networks have demanded shorter main-title sequences, preferring to jump into the action faster and thus reduce the chance that viewers will flip to another channel. Emmy's Main Title Theme Music category, however, disallows themes under 15 seconds, so many network shows are ineligible.
Last year's theme-music Emmy winner, Russ Landau (Pirate Master), says, "It's getting tougher and tougher to convince (decisionmakers) to spend the time that they would normally be making on advertising dollars.
But some producers like music -- Mark Burnett (Survivor) likes a good, long-line theme. It sets the tone for the show."
Jeff Beal, who scores ABC's Ugly Betty, gets 12 seconds -- so short a time that the music can't really be called a theme.
"It's a little sonic signature that says a lot about the style of the show and who the character is," he explains, its prominent marimba suggesting Betty's Mexican heritage.
For USA's Monk, Beal got 45 seconds (and won one of his three Emmys), and for HBO's Rome he got a minute and a half. Longer openings offer a chance "to tell more of a musical story," he says.
Heroes, by contrast, gave composers Lisa Coleman and Wendy Melvoin just 10 seconds. "You have to think in terms of 'stings,'" says Coleman, referring to the film-music tradition of brief but impactful musical statements. "We knew it had to be big and somewhat supernatural sounding. It didn't need to be terribly melodic, just atmospheric."
This year, PBS producer David Horn wanted to reinvigorate the opening sequence of Great Performances for the high-def era and called five-time Oscar winner John Williams to compose new theme music. Williams' piece debuted March 25 and is only his third primetime series signature in 25 years.
"It is elegant, and it sneaks up on you," says Horn, who previously had commissioned Oscar winners John Corigliano and Maurice Jarre to write Great Performances themes.
"I wanted to use a full symphonic orchestra, to invite the viewer to come in to a series that we like to think is classy," says Horn -- "one week the Metropolitan Opera, next week Carnegie Hall, then a musical theater piece, Shakespearean drama, a lot of different things."
In contrast, say many observers, the commercial networks are missing a bet by ignoring the power of a good theme.
"Quickening the pace, getting into storylines faster, all conspire against the theme," says Cleveland Plain Dealer TV critic Mark Dawidziak. "But on cable, the name of the game is people knowing who you are -- FX viewers, USA viewers, HBO viewers -- and this is where that old-fashioned network thinking comes into play. They hear that music and they remember that opening."
However, even some cable shows suffer from Tiny Open Syndrome, like USA's Burn Notice. Anyway, carry on.
"Eighty years from now," he adds, "today's kids, sitting in their wheelchairs in the nursing home, will be humming the SpongeBob SquarePants theme in much the same way that we know the theme songs of our youth. It's more than just a TV theme. It becomes a communal thing, a shared cultural point among your friends, your community."
Nearly 35 years ago, producers Thomas Miller and Edward Milkis put together a 20-minute presentation to convince ABC that two guest stars on Happy Days could be spun off into their own series.
They shot just a few new scenes of Penny Marshall and Cindy Williams as Laverne & Shirley but, recalls composer Charles Fox, they insisted on a 75-second main-title sequence with a fully produced song, "so, right from the beginning, people would know what it was about."
Fox and lyricist Norman Gimbel came up with "Making Our Dreams Come True." It became a top-25 hit -- one of many TV theme hits for Fox, who won an Emmy for Love, American Style and wrote themes for Happy Days, The Love Boat, Angie and others.
Today a composer is happy to get 10 seconds on a broadcast skein, and hit TV themes are rare.
Over the past 15 years, the broadcast networks have demanded shorter main-title sequences, preferring to jump into the action faster and thus reduce the chance that viewers will flip to another channel. Emmy's Main Title Theme Music category, however, disallows themes under 15 seconds, so many network shows are ineligible.
Last year's theme-music Emmy winner, Russ Landau (Pirate Master), says, "It's getting tougher and tougher to convince (decisionmakers) to spend the time that they would normally be making on advertising dollars.
But some producers like music -- Mark Burnett (Survivor) likes a good, long-line theme. It sets the tone for the show."
Jeff Beal, who scores ABC's Ugly Betty, gets 12 seconds -- so short a time that the music can't really be called a theme.
"It's a little sonic signature that says a lot about the style of the show and who the character is," he explains, its prominent marimba suggesting Betty's Mexican heritage.
For USA's Monk, Beal got 45 seconds (and won one of his three Emmys), and for HBO's Rome he got a minute and a half. Longer openings offer a chance "to tell more of a musical story," he says.
Heroes, by contrast, gave composers Lisa Coleman and Wendy Melvoin just 10 seconds. "You have to think in terms of 'stings,'" says Coleman, referring to the film-music tradition of brief but impactful musical statements. "We knew it had to be big and somewhat supernatural sounding. It didn't need to be terribly melodic, just atmospheric."
This year, PBS producer David Horn wanted to reinvigorate the opening sequence of Great Performances for the high-def era and called five-time Oscar winner John Williams to compose new theme music. Williams' piece debuted March 25 and is only his third primetime series signature in 25 years.
"It is elegant, and it sneaks up on you," says Horn, who previously had commissioned Oscar winners John Corigliano and Maurice Jarre to write Great Performances themes.
"I wanted to use a full symphonic orchestra, to invite the viewer to come in to a series that we like to think is classy," says Horn -- "one week the Metropolitan Opera, next week Carnegie Hall, then a musical theater piece, Shakespearean drama, a lot of different things."
In contrast, say many observers, the commercial networks are missing a bet by ignoring the power of a good theme.
"Quickening the pace, getting into storylines faster, all conspire against the theme," says Cleveland Plain Dealer TV critic Mark Dawidziak. "But on cable, the name of the game is people knowing who you are -- FX viewers, USA viewers, HBO viewers -- and this is where that old-fashioned network thinking comes into play. They hear that music and they remember that opening."
However, even some cable shows suffer from Tiny Open Syndrome, like USA's Burn Notice. Anyway, carry on.
"Eighty years from now," he adds, "today's kids, sitting in their wheelchairs in the nursing home, will be humming the SpongeBob SquarePants theme in much the same way that we know the theme songs of our youth. It's more than just a TV theme. It becomes a communal thing, a shared cultural point among your friends, your community."
Thursday, May 29, 2008
The RIP Earle Hagen and Alexander Courage Post.
Unfortunately no videos of the I Spy opening seem to be around (The Mod Squad seems to be less fitting). Courage's best-known work - Judd for the Defense is his only other TV theme - has no such problem.
Nothing else to say.
Nothing else to say.
Friday, January 25, 2008
The Two Of The Finest Things In Life Post.
Well, in my view anyway. That would be music and women. The Television Production Music Museum handles the former, this gallery of Erica Rose Campbell attends to the latter.
One of these links isn't SFW. Guess which.
One of these links isn't SFW. Guess which.
Sunday, October 28, 2007
The I Wish I'd Been There Post.
More than 650 people attended "Another Opening, Another Show," an all-star salute to television theme music held Thursday, Oct. 11 on the campus of the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences.
The two-and-a-half-hour show featured clips from more than 120 different TV series dating back to the early 1950s, as well as live performances of classic TV themes and several stars introducing montages of great "main title" sequences through the years.
In addition, journalist and author Jon Burlingame – whose 1996 book TV's Biggest Hits chronicled this quirky genre of music – interviewed television composers Earle Hagen, Vic Mizzy and Mike Post, along with producer Steven Bochco, about the role of TV themes and the use of music in the medium generally.
Singer Monica Mancini, whose father Henry Mancini practically launched the TV-theme craze in 1958 with Peter Gunn, served as host. "We knew the names of the people who wrote the music for shows like Dynasty and The Fugitive and Bonanza," she said, citing the composers for those shows by explaining that "to the Mancini kids, Bill Conti and Pete Rugolo and David Rose weren't just names on the screen, they were the guys our dad hung out with."
Maureen McCormick of The Brady Bunch fame introduced the sitcom montage, as well as her former boss, Brady Bunch and Gilligan's Island creator Sherwood Schwartz, in the audience. And while the original Brady Bunch opening was projected on the big screen, with Schwartz's original lyrics appearing beneath the images, the entire audience sang The Brady Bunch theme to the 90-year-old producer.
The opening sequences for The Addams Family and Green Acres were screened, after which Burlingame introduced Mizzy, the composer of both iconic themes. He regaled the crowd with amusing anecdotes about shooting the sequences and directing the Addams Family cast in the famous finger-snapping of the opening; and of coaching singer Eddie Albert and non-singer Eva Gabor in performing his Green Acres words and music.
Actor-singers John Schneider and Jean Louisa Kelly did a 10-minute segment devoted to live performances of classic TV theme songs. They dueted on "This Is It!", the theme from The Bugs Bunny Show, as well as Car 54, Where Are You?, Three's Company, the rarely heard vocal version of Bonanza and "Happy Trails" from The Roy Rogers Show.
Schneider soloed on "The Ballad of Jed Clampett" from The Beverly Hillbillies, I Love Lucy, Davy Crockett and The Dukes of Hazzard. Kelly sang Petticoat Junction and Welcome Back Kotter and wowed the crowd with a torch-song rendition of The Mickey Mouse Club March.
Former St. Elsewhere costars William Daniels and Bonnie Bartlett introduced clips of great themes from medical and legal dramas; Mancini (subbing for an ailing Robert Conrad) introduced the Westerns segment and producer Steven Bochco introduced the cop and detective show montage.
Burlingame was joined onstage by Bochco and Mike Post for a discussion of their collaborations on Hill Street Blues, L.A. Law, NYPD Blue and other series. Especially interesting were Bochco's recitation of the struggles involved with several different producers attempting to decide on a musical approach to L.A. Law – and Post's attempts to reconcile the idea of an all-percussion theme with another involving subway sounds for NYPD Blue.
Robert Vaughn, best known as Napoleon Solo on the seminal 1960s spy series The Man From U.N.C.L.E., was summoned from the audience to the podium by the original pen-communicator sound effect from that show. It was a 1960s flashback that the crowd loved. Vaughn saluted U.N.C.L.E. composer Jerry Goldsmith – who also wrote the themes for Dr. Kildare, The Waltons and Star Trek: Voyager – in his introduction to the segment on spy and action-adventure show themes.
Former Bionic Woman Lindsay Wagner quoted Rod Serling in her introduction to a montage of clips from science-fiction, fantasy and superhero shows. She mentioned John Williams' early career efforts in such Irwin Allen shows as Lost in Space and The Time Tunnel, and quipped that the Wonder Woman lyrics ("in your satin tights, fighting for your rights") were "the greatest in the history of television music."
Stacy Keach revealed a talent as a jazz pianist by performing "Harlem Nocturne," composer Earle Hagen's theme for his long-running Mickey Spillane's Mike Hammer series, and then introduced a montage of great themes from drama and anthology shows, mentioning Bernard Herrmann's work on The Alfred Hitchcock Hour and the fact that Aaron Copland even wrote the theme for CBS Playhouse.
Burlingame brought Hagen to the stage after a medley of several of his long-running series: Make Room for Daddy, The Andy Griffith Show, The Dick Van Dyke Show, Gomer Pyle USMC, That Girl, The Mod Squad, Mike Hammer and I Spy. Hagen talked about his years as a composer in television, noting that he was the whistler on the Andy Griffith theme and pointing out that "I had never whistled before, and I've never whistled since."
Post surprised the veteran composer by returning to the stage (along with Academy Chief Operating Officer Alan Perris) to present Hagen with a special award from the Academy "for his pioneering work and enduring contributions to television music."
Emmy-nominated composer Ray Colcord, a governor of the ATAS music peer group, produced the event, from a script by his co-producer, Arthur Greenwald. Stan Beard was the musical director.
Thanks to the Film Music Society.
The two-and-a-half-hour show featured clips from more than 120 different TV series dating back to the early 1950s, as well as live performances of classic TV themes and several stars introducing montages of great "main title" sequences through the years.
In addition, journalist and author Jon Burlingame – whose 1996 book TV's Biggest Hits chronicled this quirky genre of music – interviewed television composers Earle Hagen, Vic Mizzy and Mike Post, along with producer Steven Bochco, about the role of TV themes and the use of music in the medium generally.
Singer Monica Mancini, whose father Henry Mancini practically launched the TV-theme craze in 1958 with Peter Gunn, served as host. "We knew the names of the people who wrote the music for shows like Dynasty and The Fugitive and Bonanza," she said, citing the composers for those shows by explaining that "to the Mancini kids, Bill Conti and Pete Rugolo and David Rose weren't just names on the screen, they were the guys our dad hung out with."
Maureen McCormick of The Brady Bunch fame introduced the sitcom montage, as well as her former boss, Brady Bunch and Gilligan's Island creator Sherwood Schwartz, in the audience. And while the original Brady Bunch opening was projected on the big screen, with Schwartz's original lyrics appearing beneath the images, the entire audience sang The Brady Bunch theme to the 90-year-old producer.
The opening sequences for The Addams Family and Green Acres were screened, after which Burlingame introduced Mizzy, the composer of both iconic themes. He regaled the crowd with amusing anecdotes about shooting the sequences and directing the Addams Family cast in the famous finger-snapping of the opening; and of coaching singer Eddie Albert and non-singer Eva Gabor in performing his Green Acres words and music.
Actor-singers John Schneider and Jean Louisa Kelly did a 10-minute segment devoted to live performances of classic TV theme songs. They dueted on "This Is It!", the theme from The Bugs Bunny Show, as well as Car 54, Where Are You?, Three's Company, the rarely heard vocal version of Bonanza and "Happy Trails" from The Roy Rogers Show.
Schneider soloed on "The Ballad of Jed Clampett" from The Beverly Hillbillies, I Love Lucy, Davy Crockett and The Dukes of Hazzard. Kelly sang Petticoat Junction and Welcome Back Kotter and wowed the crowd with a torch-song rendition of The Mickey Mouse Club March.
Former St. Elsewhere costars William Daniels and Bonnie Bartlett introduced clips of great themes from medical and legal dramas; Mancini (subbing for an ailing Robert Conrad) introduced the Westerns segment and producer Steven Bochco introduced the cop and detective show montage.
Burlingame was joined onstage by Bochco and Mike Post for a discussion of their collaborations on Hill Street Blues, L.A. Law, NYPD Blue and other series. Especially interesting were Bochco's recitation of the struggles involved with several different producers attempting to decide on a musical approach to L.A. Law – and Post's attempts to reconcile the idea of an all-percussion theme with another involving subway sounds for NYPD Blue.
Robert Vaughn, best known as Napoleon Solo on the seminal 1960s spy series The Man From U.N.C.L.E., was summoned from the audience to the podium by the original pen-communicator sound effect from that show. It was a 1960s flashback that the crowd loved. Vaughn saluted U.N.C.L.E. composer Jerry Goldsmith – who also wrote the themes for Dr. Kildare, The Waltons and Star Trek: Voyager – in his introduction to the segment on spy and action-adventure show themes.
Former Bionic Woman Lindsay Wagner quoted Rod Serling in her introduction to a montage of clips from science-fiction, fantasy and superhero shows. She mentioned John Williams' early career efforts in such Irwin Allen shows as Lost in Space and The Time Tunnel, and quipped that the Wonder Woman lyrics ("in your satin tights, fighting for your rights") were "the greatest in the history of television music."
Stacy Keach revealed a talent as a jazz pianist by performing "Harlem Nocturne," composer Earle Hagen's theme for his long-running Mickey Spillane's Mike Hammer series, and then introduced a montage of great themes from drama and anthology shows, mentioning Bernard Herrmann's work on The Alfred Hitchcock Hour and the fact that Aaron Copland even wrote the theme for CBS Playhouse.
Burlingame brought Hagen to the stage after a medley of several of his long-running series: Make Room for Daddy, The Andy Griffith Show, The Dick Van Dyke Show, Gomer Pyle USMC, That Girl, The Mod Squad, Mike Hammer and I Spy. Hagen talked about his years as a composer in television, noting that he was the whistler on the Andy Griffith theme and pointing out that "I had never whistled before, and I've never whistled since."
Post surprised the veteran composer by returning to the stage (along with Academy Chief Operating Officer Alan Perris) to present Hagen with a special award from the Academy "for his pioneering work and enduring contributions to television music."
Emmy-nominated composer Ray Colcord, a governor of the ATAS music peer group, produced the event, from a script by his co-producer, Arthur Greenwald. Stan Beard was the musical director.
Thanks to the Film Music Society.
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