Guest this weekend I’ll also mostly be listening to … TV themes first heard 50 years ago September 11, 2016
Posted by guestposter in Uncategorized.trackback
Many thanks to Joe Mooney for the following:
This week fifty years ago was possibly the greatest moment in television history . September 1966 saw the premiere of Star Trek , The Monkees , Tarzan , The Green Hornet and The Time Tunnel on U.S. networks!
It would be a while of course before we got to view these gems on this side of the pond , but I’m sure the unmistakable knowledge that the world of cathode entertainment had changed forever reached our shores.
It was a busy time in the Ol’ U.S.of A – It wasn’t too long since their president had been popped, a far of land called Vietnam would soon be taking a turn for the worse, the Civil Rights movement was ramping up down South and Cold War tensions ensured the threat of nuclear annihilation or communist infiltration was never far from ones thoughts. But hey, television had just turned awesome so who cared really?
Where no man had gone before –
Too much Monkee business –
King of the swingers –
Blast from the past –
And one of the most catchy themes of all , from a show that featured a young Bruce Lee (and more recently used in ‘Kill Bill’ ) –
The Cedar Lounge Revolution 
First aired in the same year but I suppose technically doesn’t qualify as the English-language theme tune came a bit later. Clontarf-born Jackie Lee.
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Also from 1966, anybody else remember Daktari?
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Yep, very well actually.
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My God, What a year, and all with such great theme music. What recent series has a really good theme that stands by itself?
Mission impossible.
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I was wondering about that recently. Is it the instrumentation is just so good? I’m not a fan really of Game of Thrones, but I’ve always liked the music.
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I saw a documentary about swing and the big band era, and it talked about the remnants of the big bands ended up in Hollywood in the 60s and 70s. I think they were the basis for a lot of those great themes.
Nelson Riddle springs to mind. Did the instrumentation for Sinatra’s ‘only the loney’ in the 50s, and also wrote the Batman theme in the 60s.
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And apparently that batman series débuted in….. 1966
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But I’ve just checked, and apparently Neal Hefti wrote it and Riddle did an arrangement. But that makes a double link to the big band era, as Hefti also wrote for Count Basie
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That has to be a part of it because those themes certainly swing – though the Monkees of course comes from a different place – rock’n’roll and more directly the Beatles.
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Don’t mean to hijack the thread, but I really enjoyed the premise. As a final link, this is Hefti’s other great classic. But its not from 1966…..
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Is 1964 disqualified? Because I think there are two good ones from that year:
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If we’re going to go crazy and look at other years we could be here a long time ! I’ll make it worse and jump ahead a decade and across an ocean – From the mid 1970’s , this was a great show , and a great theme : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OSwRjvwXPEg
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Not related to the music but there was a documentary on BBC4 last night about BBC children’s TV in the 60s and 70s that was very interesting. It showed the imagination and enthusiasm of the small and underfunded dept to bring good television to their young audience. As one person interviewed said, it was about public service. Apart from the nostalgia it also makes one realise how children’s TV has gone downhill in the meantime (not just a standard grumpy old man response). I didn’t catch the name of the programme but it’ll be on the BBC player.
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[…] (And consider too this from Joe Mooney on a previous crop of TV themes). […]
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