Would you like to hear this music without the applause?  If the answer is yes, and based on the popularity of my first article about WHEW!, it probably is, then tvpmm.com needs your help.

You see, last December, they announced via Twitter that Alan Thicke was going to release the WHEW! music package to them.  This was great news for us true believers.  This news, however, has hit a block (4, 3, 2, 1!).  This block was placed by the Copyright Office.  It seems they want some money before tvpmm.com can upload the files. 

This news came to light via their Twitter page within the past week.  They are considering fundraising to meet the required funds.  That’s where yiyu come in.

I know I should be the first in line with a check at the ready to help.  I would be, too, but dear readers, I have recently gone back to work full time, and need every dollar I make to repay debts of honor, meet monthly expenses, feed myself, etc.  So, I make this humble plea to the rest of you.  Contact tvpmm.com, and tell them you can help in this matter.  If you can, obviously.  I’m sure I’m not the only one who’s trying to rebuild his finances, and I am not trying to put pressure on anyone.  Tvpmm.com doesn’t even know I’m putting the word out to try to help. 

Well, there you have it.  WHEW! is THIS close to being uploaded.  I thank you if my plea has reached your ears.  Again…no pressure intended.

MOBY DICK was the brainchild of  songwriters Robert Longden and Hereward Kaye, and was produced by impresario Cameron Mackintosh.  Now don’t let the title fool you.  This was not another effects-laden emotionally heavy show.  This was the total opposite end of the scale.  It’s actually a show-within-a-show musical about a girls’ school  that needs to raise funds to pay their electricity bill, which, in the words of the headmistress is “larger than Harrod’s”.  This leads to a mercilessly bouncy opener in which the schoolgirls and staff bounce ideas for raising money in time for “Parents Day”.  Ideas in this song range from making gin, to kidnapping canine star Rin Tin Tin, to stealing the World Cup trophy.  Enter student Fifi Clampwell, authoress of the musical within the musical.  It’s decided….Moby dick will be the presentation for Parents Day, with Fifi as Ishmael and the headmistress as Ahab.

Yes, you did read that right.  The headmistress is actually actor/singer Tony Monopoly in drag, and reverse drag when he goes from headmistress to Ahab.  Just go with it, it makes life a lot easier.  Anyway, despite Fifi’s insistence on a straight telling of the story, the jokes and asides keep coming.  The jokes range from bawdy to just plain corny.  I really don’t want to go into too much detail, because I’d run the risk of some major spoilers being ruined.  You’ll just have to find a copy and hear for yourself.

The score by Longden and Kaye, though is really well-crafted.  We get a range of styles from gospel to sea shanty to big band jazz to pop.  It’s not unusual to hear the audience get caught up in it more than once.  My personal favorite tracks include “At Sea One Day”, “Primitive”, “Heave Away”, and “A Whale of a Tale”, not to mention “Parents Day” discussed earlier.

Listening to the CD, and the fun score, combined with the enthusiastic reaction of the audience, and the backing of Cameron Mackintosh, you’d have thought that this would be a welcome breath of fresh air in 1991 West End London.  Like I said, this was the total opposite of MISS SAIGON, LES MISERABLES, and PHANTOM.  Sadly, this was not the case.  The critics HATED MOBY DICK.  They unanimously declared that the novel was not being given the proper respect and treatment it deserved.  My reaction to this is “Did you not SEE the first 15 minutes?  It’s not REALY about Moby Dick, it’s about a school trying to pay the bills by doing something almost totally impossible, and impractical.  Not to mention the fact that it’s billed as a musical COMEDY!  Sheesh!”.  Seriously, those critics needed to get over themselves for 5 minutes.  Poor Cameron just couldn’t seem to win for trying by this point.  He made the live recording mainly for cast and friends, but people who saw it kept asking for the album.  Hence the live recording.

I had seen it in the stores a few times in the mid 1990′s, and left it there, until one day in 1996, when I finally decided to buy it.  If you’ve read this far.  I guess you know how I feel about it.  With the current trend in modern musical comedy to acknowledge and involve the audience, maybe this whale can be saved.  If I find YouTube video, I’ll post it here, so you can see and hear for yourself.

Here’s a great song “PEQUOD” from Act 1:

Instrumentation: British Invasion/Carnaby Street Rock ensemble with backing string section. Unknown male vocalists.

TO TELL THE TRUTH was a show I got to see on occasion when I was growing up. I say this becasue the house I grew up in was on a hill, and while our antenna got the Boston stations, and WMUR in Manchester NH clearly, we could only watch the Providence stations on a little black and white we had downstairs in the dining room. And we never used that, except for special reasons.

Anyway, when we did get access to the Providence stations, and TO TELL THE TRUTH was on, I was a happy camper. I liked the idea of the game. Let’s face it, Mark Goodson was a god in my childhood eyes. But that theme was awesome.

I honestly didn’t know back then that having lyrics to game show themes was possible back then. Of course, now I know otherwise. There was only one problem: From my TV’s slightly fuzzy picture, and the three inch speaker, I had no idea what they were singing. I just thought they were vocalizing. When the show went off the air, I thought I’d NEVER get to hear the song clearly.

Not so fast! Along comes the internet and some well connected fans managed to write them down on their sites. So this theme actually turns out to be a confrontational love song about a guy who’s girl is always lying to him. Who’d a thunk? Then a CD company gets their hands on 20 themes from shows that were airing on the fledgling GSN (don’t get me going on their alleged lineup), Right there in the first 10 tracks was the theme I was looking for. I was in heaven. As I get older, I’m constantly amazed at how well this theme was crafted, and how it could have stood as a hit song in its own right. A satellite dish company seems to think so too. You may have seen their homage to this great show. It’s not perfect, but it’s an admirable effort. I wish GSN would take the hint and negotiate the rights to air this classic version again. But GSN lately seems to be the kind of network that wouldn’t get it if they were handed a large box labelled “IT”, In any case, here’s a great Youtube montage of photos accompanying the theme:

Composer: Artie Butler

Instrumentation:  Brassy 1970′s disco band with vocalizations, but also heard without vocals

This is what I call a one hit game show theme wonder.  It’s really hard, in my opinion to write music for a comedy game show.  There’s the temptation to come up wioth something childish that ultimately suggests that the format isn’t strong enough on it’s own, and the comedy needs to be in your face with childish clowning around music.  Fortunately, this rarely happned during the golden age of daytime, and Artie Butler’s MAKE ME LAUGH is a prime example of a theme that could have worked for almost any concept.

I only got to see this version of MAKE ME LAUGH during the USA run.  I couldn’t believe my ears when the show started.  I was expecting childish clowning around pastiche.  Instead, I got something that was closer to DISCO INFERNO.  I loved it!  What’s more, there was a chorus vocalizing, and punctuating the theme with the occasional shout of “Laugh!”.  I always liked vocals in game show music, anyway.

Needless to sy this theme has stayed with me for 25 years, and it still makes me feel like dancing when I hear it.  As for the game itself.  I tried playing along at home, but rarely made it past the first 15 seconds of the first comedian.  Especially if Yakov Smirnov was in the lineup.  I’d love to post a Youtube link, but there’s only one clip from this version featuring gameplay, and I want you to hear this in it’s glory.  So here’s a link to the music on tvpmm.com-the Television Production Music Museum.  This site will be my backup if YouTube doesn’t deliver: http://tvpmm.com/documents/49.html

You’ll have to copy and paste. The link feature doesn’t seem to be working.

Network: ABC

Who wrote it:  Edd Kalehoff

Instrumentation: Mostly synthesizers, with a flute-like synth lead, slap bass, and percussive drum kit.

This may seem like an odd choice, since TRIVIA TRAP didn’t light the fires of ABC’s daytime lineup, especially since it went up against a certain 60 minute CBS megahit, but I did want to start with one that I knew had a Youtube link.  What I love about Edd’s theme is it’s unfailing optimistic sound.  This is accomplished with the flutey synth lead’s rising note sequnce.  It’s cheerful and fun, and never flags.  The backing instrumentation is classic Kalehoff, with the heavy bass guitar leading the way for the backing synthesizers.  Those backing synths, by the way, get their own chance to shine as the theme approaches the final chorus.  I fell in love with this theme the first time I heard it.  Every time I play it on my desktop, or on my Minidisc player, I feel great.  Edd would soon work with the game show creators at Nickelodeon, so it’s possible that this was one of Edd’s last daytime network pieces, except for new cues written for PRICE IS RIGHT.  Anyway, here it is. Enjoy!

For Joe, there was no question.  One of Joe’s funniest character voices was a middle-aged woman with a German accent (see PONTOFFEL POCK, WHERE ARE YOU?, and listen for it).  So Joe’s recurring comic character would have been “Helga von Grunt”:  the world’s worst opera singer.  Just picture it:  Joe dressed up as a washed up opera singer, complete with the Viking helmet and braids (I was laughing as I came up with it, and I swear I heard Joe laughing as well).  Helga, of course, would have been clueless about her lack of talent, and would torture the other characters in the skits.  Heaven help anyone who pointed out the reality of Helga’s singing-she’d smack them around until they apologized.  I pictured that Luis Avalos would play her long-suffering butler-Seymour (Luis would be doing Peter Lorre of course-it’s one of his best character voices).

Luis would not be relegated to always playing Seymour.  Luis is also good with Groucho Marx.  I pictured a politician-type character for Luis that would be every bit Groucho.  Skip Hinnant would play his straight man-a junior political aide.  Plenty of guest star opportunities here.  Every once in a while, maybe Joe would have played the politicians brother-patterned either after Chico or Harpo, maybe both?  I like that idea.

Skip and Judy’s comic strength was in their ability to play an older married couple.  Their bits could have been a forerunner to THE GOLDEN GIRLS.  Skip and Judy’s old couple would have been old, but they would have been sharp as a tack.  Great opportunity here for cultural commentary and observation, no?

Paul Dooley and Marty Brill are the toughest ones for me to develop characters for.  I’m not really as familiar with their acting as I’d like.  Though I DO know that Marty can do a pretty darn good Mel Brooks German accent.  Maybe he could have had a character like Sid Caesar used to have on YOUR SHOW OF SHOWS, where Marty could just riff on any science subject that lent itself to comedy.    Still don’t know what I’d do for Paul.  Maybe an everyman character for whom nothing goes right.  Worked for Jackie Gleason….

Didi Conn’s comic sensibility lies in her natural vocal timbre.  I like the idea of a child-like character for her (again, social commentary).  I wouldn’t create a ditzy character for her.  It worked for Goldie Hawn on LAUGH-IN, but at the time MUSIC MACHINE would have hit the airwaves, it would have bordered on insulting.  Yes, a child character wise beyond her years works here.  Judy would naturally play her mom (the straight woman role).

Of course, these are just thumbnail character sketches-it’s a blog, not WAR AND PEACE, after all.  But facts are facts.  The best variety shows of my childhood had some great recurring characters.  THE JOE RAPOSO MUSIC MACHINE would have had them too.

This thought was too good to let go of!  The first thought that I came up with:  which network would have been right?  NBC had Flip Wilson, and ABC had Donny and Marie, so that left CBS.  They were always known as the Tiffany Network (before Mark Burnett came along), and would have jumped at the chance.

OK, so the network would have been CBS.  Now how about a title?  Well, Joe was a musical genius of great variety and invention.  Invention?  That led me to the word Machine.  OK, so “Machine” would have been part of the title.  Joe’s name would obviously be featured in the title.  All of a sudden it hit me:  the show would have been called THE JOE RAPOSO MUSIC MACHINE.

Now I’m beginning to really see it!  Joe’s announcer would have been either John Harlan, Dick Tufeld, Peter Cullen, or Gary Owens (I know who my friend would have picked, I think).  The show would open with a quick animation of Joe approaching a music machine (with all kinds of instruments.  He’d tap a couple of notes of SING, and a musical note would zoom out from the machine and open up on the set.  Joe’s band would be onstage center, and the announcer would say, “From CBS Television City in Hollywood, please welcome Joe Raposo!”  Joe would come out and either sing a new song he’d written, or talk with the audience, and get their energy up. After which, Joe would say, “Stay tuned, I’ll be right back!”.  Back to the animation, and Joe is playing “Sing” again.  This time, the Machine kicks in, and an uptempo, jazzy, brassy version of “Sing” would be heard.

Cue announcer:  “From Hollywood, it’s THE JOE RAPOSO MUSIC MACHINE!  Starring Joe Raposo!  With Bob Cranshaw, Danny Epstein and the Joe Raposo Combo.  Featuring the magic of Jim Henson’s Muppets (maybe some Muppet Show characters would have been introduced here?).  Also starring Paul Dooley, Judy Graubart and Skip Hinnant, Marty Brill, Didi Conn, Luis Avalos (do you see a pattern here?), the Patricia Birch Dancers, and this week’s special guests Frank Sinatra, Paul Lynde, and from Broadway’s PIPPIN Ben Vereen!  Once again, the star of our show, Joe Raposo!”

Joe would continue the show’s opening segment.  A song, a dance,maybe some comic business with the Muppets or guest stars…it would be different every week.  Like every good variety show I watched, there’d be recurring skits and characters.  Of course the Muppets would have their own segment in the first half.  That way, if the kids had to go to bed before the show was over, they’d have had the chance to see them:-).

The middle part of the variety shows I grew up with had what was known as the “concert spot”  MUSIC MACHINE would be no exception.  Joe would lead the band in his original pieces, maybe pay tribute to the different composers he admired.  The musical guests would be invited to participate, to be sure (especially if Frank was on the guest list).  The second half would regularly include a production number featuring the dancers.  But one thing I felt would have been essential, would have been the last 10 minutes or so being just Joe at the piano sharing some of his gentle philosophies interjected with bits of song.  Just Joe, on a dark stage connecting with his audience.  Joe would thank his guests after the last commercial, and close the show with a chorus of “Little Things”, then a simple , “Good night ladies and gentlemen, we love you!”, with the combo playing out an instrumental version of the song, while the announcer gives any last minute credits.

I would have loved to have seen this happen.  It would have been an excellent showcase for Joe.  But you know something?  I believe that part of the joy of heaven is getting to try things we were unable to try on Earth.  When my time comes (and I hope it’s not TOO soon, of course).  I want to produce this with Joe, and we KNOW we’ll have nothing but great audiences and a 50 share!

A game show related blog broke the story yesterday that Fox’s OUR LITTLE GENIUS will NOT be airing after all.  It’s not because the show didn’t test well.  It’s not because Fox couldn’t find a timeslot, and it’s not because the show wouldn’t meet its budget.  No.   The reason was, and there is no other way to say this:  the children were being coached, and given  questions that they COULD answer to guarantee a $10,000 minimum prize.

Have we learned NOTHING since the quiz show scandals of the 1950′s?  This is RIGGING.  I don’t care how you spin this.  If GENIUS hit the air, America would have been fooled AGAIN.  As an aspiring game show creator, I am appalled that Mark Burnett was willing to stoop to such a tactic just to make “exciting television” or feed Fox’s coffers with high ratings.

Mr. Burnett is LUCKY I’m not in charge of the FCC.  If I were, and this news item came my way, I would demand that all of Mr. Burnett’s shows be pulled from the airwaves, and each show scrutinized with a finer toothed comb than what was used when Jack Barry and his colleagues were investigated.  And, no word of a lie, each show that even came CLOSE to doing what was done with GENIUS would be gone for all time.  That’s right CBS, you’d lose your precious SURVIVOR, and I would not lose one minute’s sleep over this.

Ah, you say, but what about shows like OPERATION REPO on trutv?  Wake up!  My colleagues at work were discussing this two days ago.  One colleague, who has FIRST HAND witness experience, says that OPEARTION REPO is about as realistic as an episode of ALF.  It’s all staged.  So what’s a network that promotes actuality doing airing a show that is 95 percent STAGED?  Again, the answer is simple.  They are playing on the willingness of the American public to believe that everything on “reality” television actually happens, and they want the revenue from the ratings.  They don’t care that you’re being fooled.  They want you to be like mindless zombies.

Again I say wake up, America.  This garbage being handed to you is as real as a four dollar bill.  And you’re going to keep getting this phoney baloney reality crap UNTIL you start speaking up, writing to the networks, and demand QUALITY programming that promotes POSITIVE values, and isn’t out to deceive you.  And as for you, Mr. Burnett, if you EVER do this to the American public again, we WILL see to it that you won’t even be able to get a job cleaning the bathrooms at a public acess station.

HUGE UPDATE:  It looks like the heat is on for Mark Burnett and company.  According to Buzzerblog.com, and confirmed in the New York Times, one of the parents of one of the slated contestants wrote a letter to the FCC about the shady goings-on at OUR LITTLE GENIUS.  The FCC, for it’s part has now called for an investigation into what went on, and what else might be going on with Mark Burnett Productions, should the FCC conclude that GENIUS was in fact rigged (I don’t see how they won’t-the evidence supplied to them is pretty damning).  Could this be the beginning of the end for the fake reality genre that has choked the creativity out of TV?  Only time will tell,  While I take no delight in the downfall of others, all I can say is it’s about time.

Then something happned.  Eisner was out, and Robert Iger was in.  Not only that, John Lasseter, the head of Pixar (the gold standard of CG animation in my opinion) was named head of feature animation.  Lasseter strongly believed in Walt’s story telling principles, and even better, announced that 2 D hand drawn animation waasn’t going anywhere, and we would soon see THE PRINCESS AND THE FROG, as proof.

Well, it’s out in the theaters now, and if you haven’t seen it yet, what on earth are you waiting for?  This is Disney doing what it soes best!  The animation is stunningly beautiful From the scenic sets, to the human characters, to the bayou critters-nothing gets short-changed.  The story has been moved from a mythical country to right here in the good old USA (New Orleans to be precise), during the jazz era.  It’s also been fleshed out to provide good messagesabout the need to work for your dreams, not just sit around wishing, the importance of family (both the title characters grow up in two parent homes, and the frog/prince is in the States as part of an exercise in tough love-how often do we see THAT?), and doing for your friends is more noble that being born into priveledge.   The bayou characters help provide some of the biggest laughs.  There’s Louis, a jazz loving gator who despite his size, is deathly afraid of hunters.  Then there’s Ray, a Cajun firefly who has courage and enthusiasm that measure 10,000 times his size.  Without giving away too much, one of these loveable characters will make the ultimate sacrifice to help Tiana and Naveen-it’s a beautiful moment , though in the end.

Now, what’s a Disney animated movie without a villain?  In this film, we have Dr. Facilier, known as “The Shadow Man”-and for good reason.  His voodoo alllows him to use his own shadow, and demonic minion shadows to do his bidding.  It is Facilier who transforms Naveen, and Naveen willl stay af rog, while his butler takes on Naveen’s form. as long as Naveen’s blood remains in Facilier’s talisman.  Let me take a moment to say something here.  Some parents out there won’t take their kids to this movie because they are afraid Facilier is too scary.  People, a villain is SUPPOSED to be scary-DUH!  This movie would be very BORING if we had no villain, and the prince had been a frog from the get go.  There would have been no drama, no neat effects animation, and no great song for the villain (I’ll get to the music in a second).  Without a mean scary villain like Facilier, this movie would have all the drama and intelligence of Britney Spears’ perfume commercial.  Parents, you can’t ALWAYS protect your child from scary movie elements, and you shouldn’t try to.  It’s good to be scared once in a while.  Even SESAME STREET’s golden era (before Elmo’s takeover) had deliberately frightening segments.  And our generation, at least this member, turned out OK.

I promised I’d talk about the music.  Randy Newman has penned some of his best songs since CATS DOM’T DANCE.  Every song captures one element of the New Orleans sound.   With the exception of Ray’s romantic ballad, I can’t think of a song where my foot didn’t start tapping, and I actually found myself singing quietly to myself-and I hadn’t even heard these songs before tonight.  That’s just amazing in my book.  I am seriously considering buying the CD.  Guess you could say that this is the best musical I have seen this year.

In closing, I can’t encourage you enough to see this wonderful movie.  If you have to wait for the DVD, that’s understandable, given the times we live in.  But do find a way to see it.  In the words of the bayou, “It’s goooooood,  I gar-on-tee!”

The first is the “Endearing Charms” gag.  This one slays me every time.  for the uninitiated, here’s how it works.  The villain wires a piano (or in at least one case a xylophone) with enough explosives to destroy an ocean liner.  The explosives, however, will only detonate when the intended victim (usually Bugs Bunny or the Road Runner) plays the last notes in the opening bars of that old standard “Those Endearing Young Charms”.  I don’t know WHY Carl Stalling or Chuck Jones, or whoever it was decided on this song, but it is a genius move by any standard.

The payoff, though is what sells the joke.  Bugs or Road Runner gets the melody right until he hits the critical last note.  Invariably they hit the note to the immediate right , then the immediate left of the trigger.  The villain waits for the hero to try again, with the same result.  Now the villain is getting mad.  When the note is missed AGAIN, the villain is so mad, he forgets what will happen, and plays the melody the right way, with the resulting explosion.  Sometimes the keys fall to the ground and finish the musical phrase.

I love this bit.  Partly because hearing an old song played incorrectly is always funny.  Partly because the hero isn’t trying to miss the trigger note.  But I think it’s mostly because the villain losing his temper, and forgetting his own trap is classic comedy and poetic justice.

While the above bit isn’t unique to one Warner Bros. cartoon, my other favorite bit is unique to one cartoon.  This bit came from the Depatie/Freleng era (after Chuck Jones’s departure) of Road Runner cartoons.  The cartoon in question is HIGHWAY RUNNERY.  In this cartoon, Wile E. Coyote sets what in my mind is the perfect trap.  He places a home made time bomb, complete with alarm clock (important for the payoff) into a phony egg, and places the egg on the nest right in front of Road Runner’s path.  Road Runner comes along, sees the egg on the nest, and its nesting instincts kick in.

Wile E . is thrilled, it’s going PERFECTLY.  Perfectly that is, until the egg rumbles, hatches, and out pops this little wind up baby Road Runner, complete with alarm clock belly, and head on a mainspring.  This wind up Road Runner starts walking towards Wile E (complete with the mechanical machine percussion Jay Ward used to use in the Clyde Crashcup series-must be a sound effects library package, because Treg Brown isn’t listed in the credits for sound effects.  In fact, there is no sound effects credit).  Wile E. can’t believe what he’s seeing, as he maneuvers around his rock hiding place., trying to get away from it, as it seems to be following him  You can guess what happens when the mechanical Road Runner reaches poor Wile E, and he’s foolish enough to reach down to try to pick the thing up.  But that’s not the end of it.  After the first explosion, which lands Wile E. in a crater bigger than himself, the alarm clock (the only surviving part of the explosion) rings normally.  Wile E. takes a rock, and smashes it, causing a SECOND explosion, adding injury to insult.

And that second explosion is one reason why I love this bit.  You almost feel bad for Wile E. that this perfect plan went so badly, when it should have worked perfectly.  But face it, you gotta love that baby wind up Road Runner, and the proud look on the real Road Runner’s face when it hatches.  It’s priceless.

So go ahead and laugh, it’s good for you!  You can watch HIGHWAY RUNNERY online at dailymotion.com.  Put the title into Google search, and you’ll get there a lot faster.