If I could have
dinner with three famous people, I might choose Hoyt Curtin, Vic Mizzy and Earle
Hagen. You probably never
heard of them but you know every word of their work. That’s because they wrote
theme songs for ten of the most popular television sitcoms and cartoons of the
1960’s.
Popular television
today still uses opening musical themes but the golden age of theme songs with
lyrics was the 1960s and early 70s. It was a time when the opening music set up
the whole series.
How did those
castaways get on Gilligan’s Island again. We all know it was a three hour
cruise because we can sing it. The composer of “Gilligan’s Island,” Sherwood
Schwartz also wrote The Brady Bunch and the theme song for a short lived sitcom
called It’s About Time.
When you step back
from the shows and listen to the themes as complete songs, you begin to
appreciate the art of composing 60 second songs that are informative and
catchy.
Hoyt Curtin, for
example, was writing a Schlitz Beer commercial when he was approached by the
Hanna-Barbera studios to write a jingle for a new cartoon series. That project
earned him a full time gig with the studios where he wrote their most famous
theme songs such as The Flintstones, The Jetsons, Huckleberry Hound, Quick DrawMcGraw, Johnny Quest, The Smurfs and Superfriends. When it came to cartoons, the guy had the
golden touch.
Another composer
who had the golden touch was Earle Hagen. Like many people in the music
business in the late 50s, Hagen started with the big bands of the 40s playing
with Benny Goodman and Tommy Dorsey among others. He began writings cores for
movies and ultimately moved into television.
He co-wrote a
little song called The Fishing Hole which became inseparable from the popular
Andy Griffith Show. He also wrote themes for the Dick Van Dyke Show, GomerPyle, That Girl, Make Room For Daddy and The Mod Squad.
Howard Greenfield
lived in the same Brooklyn apartment building as Neil Sedaka and co-wrote many
of his most popular hits like Breaking Up Is Hard To Do, Oh Carol, Calendar
Girl and Love Will Keep Us Together. He
took time out from his pop song writing to compose the theme songs to Gidget,
Bewitched, Hazel and The Flying Nun.
Listen to some old Neil Sedaka and follow that up with his TV theme
songs and you will hear the similarities.
I once devoted a
column to Vic Mizzy and his traffic safety song about jaywalking called In TheMiddle, In The Middle. Mizzy also wrote
the classic Addams Family and Green Acres tunes. He went on to write the scores
to all five Don Knotts movies.
Fans of country
rock music in the 70s might remember a pedal steel session player named Pete
Kleinow or Sneaky Pete. He was also a founding member of the Flying Burrito
Brothers but before his hippie days he wrote the odd theme songs for Gumby and
Davey and Goliath – go figure.
My favorite TV
theme song story takes us to the talking horse Mr. Ed. His theme song was written by Ray Evans and
Jay Livingstone. According to an interview with the pair, they never saw film
before writing the music or words. They just imagined what the horse would
say. It was first sung by an Italian
opera singer but the producers used Livingstone’s demo version and voice
instead.
“I feel sorry if
anyone ever has to sing these lyrics,” he said in the interview which is posted
on YouTube.
The truth is that
all of us have sung the lyrics to Mr. Ed and many more silly sixties theme
songs. For that we say thanks to Hoyt and Vic and Sheldon and friends.
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