Three Tune Tuesday: Picking a theme
This post was inspired by this one by @bozz about Mike Post who composed a lot of theme tunes for US shows. I shall include it in the #threetunetuesday challenge by @ablaze.
A UK equivalent to Mike Post could be Ronnie Hazelhurst. He wrote the theme tunes for many comedy shows in the 1970s. This was when I was growing up and as we only had three channels everyone watched the same shows.
Last of the Summer Wine
He liked to incorporate sounds and other elements of the shows into the music. Last of the Summer Wine was about a group of old guys in a small Yorkshire town who would get up to all sorts of adventures. It ran for 37 years with the cast changing as various actors passed on. It employed a lot of them at the end of their careers. Although it has no lyrics you can sing the title along with the main part.
Are You Being Served?
The theme for Are You Being Served had lyrics as well as the sound of a cash register. The show was set in Grace Brothers' department store. The comedy was very much of its time and might not go down well with a modern audience. You had the grumpy old lady, the young sexy female assistant, the girl-chasing young guy and a very camp man. Quite a few shows had obviously homosexual characters back then. The store owner was a very old man who was always attended by sexily dressed 'nurses'. This was in the same period as Benny Hill.
Some Mothers Do 'Ave 'Em
Some Mothers Do 'Ave 'Em featured the accident prone Frank Spencer, played by Michael Crawford who has also had a career in musicals such as Hello Dolly and The Phantom of the Opera. The clever part of the theme is that it has piccolos playing the title in Morse code. Some episodes were filmed in my home town of Bedford. This show spawned a few catchphrases.
This has been a fun trip down memory lane. We heard these tunes so many times that they got stuck in my head. Some of the shows still get repeated now we have many more channels. I find some of them hard to watch, but then I never really liked comedy that made me cringe.
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I am still haunted by Last of the summer wine now. Remembering the days of just 4 channels and nothing on of a Sunday and watching this as the only thing on. To a young lad, it was awful TV, but it did have some good gags. I did like Some mother's do Av em much more though.
I think Last of the Summer Wine was aimed more at an older audience, but seeing old guys being silly could amuse the kids too. There was some clever writing on these shows, but it's different to a lot of modern comedy.
I agree, I would have been happier with A Team or Knight rider at the time, but can see it's appeal now. 😆
Dang 37 years on that first one! That is impressive. I remember that Are you being served used to play on the public television stations around here, but we never watched it growing up. I don't think my parents were really fans of that British humor.
Apparently they tried a US version of Are You Being Served?, but it didn't last long.
Brings back some cringeworthy memories! He’s not seriously going to do that? Whatever happened to slapstick! Incidental music was great on these shows too, lots of brass sounds!
There were so many comedies back then and some age better than others. They still repeat some of them on BBC2. I actually went to a filming of Never The Twain, but I don't think I watched it much.
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When I used to work for one of the photo agencies about twenty years ago, I photographed closely with some televised events such as the London Marathon and a couple of the terrible series Big Brother. I made a good friend whilst there though in another photographer who was also questioning why on earth we said yes to the press passes. Though both Davina and Dermott were lovely and quite down to earth off camera.
I went along to a recording of the Infinite Monkey Cage a few years back and that was great fun.
We've been to Infinite Monkey Cage a few times. Done a fair few radio and TV shows, but not any more drama/comedy scripted stuff. It's interesting to see what goes on behind the scenes.
It’s very fascinating and how you can see the BBC newsroom from the cafe in there, not fully but enough to get an idea of the action there.
I've been there lots of times, but the first time we went they took us through the front door and we waited in some other room. That may have been before they built the new bit. I'm very tempted to do their tour some time.
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BEER.I've watched a lot of Are You Being Served? and I think it holds up. And I'm not even English.
I've not watched it in many years, but I have some memories of it. Other shows from the 70s like Porridge and Dad's Army get repeated a lot.
I’ve not watched any of these but it seem to be fun from what you’ve shared on here
Nice one!
Well you are probably not that old and they may not have been shown where you are.
Cringe-worthy TV I grew up with. There was nothing else to watch, or do, this was 'the entertainment'.
You posted the best one years ago, after I just arrived on STEEM. A great tune.
There was some good stuff back then, but it was a very different time.
The Weekend World theme wasn't written for it, but was an interesting choice. I assume Mountain got paid well for it. Of course Top of the Pops used a version of Whole Lotta Love for a long time. I'm not sure I remember the titles being so erotic though.
Realmente yo me inclino por los programas antiguos , obviamente acá en mi país no se veían los mismos programas, pero para aquellos tiempos había fuerte influencia de programas norteamericanos.
We had American shows too. They seemed more exotic back then.
claro... entiendo.. saludos mi amigo..
I’m familiar with Mike Post but don’t know anything about Ronnie Hazelhurst. Thank you for sharing!
Ronnie did loads of British TV show themes. That music was part of my growing up.
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Haha! These were pretty awesome. Loved the piccolos. Theme from Last of the Summer Wine somewhat reminds me of the themesong to The Waltons, which was a rather popular show in the US in the early 70s:
They showed The Waltons here too. I didn't really watch it, but I think my parents did and I would hear them all saying 'goodnight' at the end.
I don't think I've heard the theme in a while, but I recognised.
Cool picks! I tend to overthink my music pick themes. I think this was a cool theme, actual themes. I like it! This week I went with “THE” bands and picked those early two thousands bands like The Strokes , The White Stripes ect ect. Thanks for sharing your picks! Cheers!