Growing Pains

Condolences on the loss of your father. I am glad your family managed to stay together and be close. Its in the tough times we realize how important they are.

I think when there are Star Trekkie Matter Transport devices, there are still going to be those folks who just can't make it to family gatherings.

Also did you guys have a bet, on how often you could use the word "Shibboleth" in one conversation?

Rob mentioned how theme songs dated back to the days of radio. Original themes were quite rare though, mostly it was a popular song that someone plucked out of thin air (The Love Nest from the 1920 Broadway show Mary became associated with George Burns and Gracie Allen) or it was associated with a singer featured in the show (Where the Blue of the Night was a 1931 hit for Bing Crosby and stayed with him for his career.)

Jack Benny was less than thrilled with Love in Bloom. Reading the lyrics, “Can it be the trees that fill the breeze with rare and magic perfume,” he exclaimed, “What the hell does that have to do with me?”

In late 1940 ASCAP, the music licensing agency, demanded hefty increases from the networks. On January 1, 1941 the nets started a 10-month boycott of ASCAP properties and started up the rival BMI. All of the theme songs disappeared overnight until ASCAP lowered their demands.

During the boycott singers like Crosby and Sinatra ended up singing a lot of old songs in the public domain. Stephen Foster enjoyed a mini-revival.

Condolences for the loss of your father, Rob. You have mentioned him several times and I know you and your family miss him even as you celebrate his life.

Having lived on the Delmarva Peninsula for decades now, I visit Baltimore frequently and love many of its neighborhoods--some are gradually returning to their former glory as others continue to decay. One particular favorite is Patterson Park--now a thriving neighborhood of rowhouse architecture surrounding a crown jewel of a park (derelicts and syringes notwithstanding).

First off, my condolences to Rob and his family.

This brought back memories. When I as a kid, I really liked TV themes songs, and somewhere in my folks' house is a cassette tape where I recorded the themes I liked, including A-Team, Knight Rider, Cheers. I recorded them directly from the TV, headphone out, aux-in :) I think it was John Williams' score of Star Wars that got me interested in movie soundtracks, but other than agree with James in his opinion about Williams, that is another discussion.

They mentioned Mark Mothersbaugh; I was never a Devo fan growing up, but I'm amazed by his credit list as a composer. Given my attitudes toward pop music at the time, I never would have predicted that route for him.

Isn't the TV theme song also victim to the greater advertising time that is being required? I just looked in Netflix and saw that for Cheers, episodes were 24 min at the start and 23 at the end. For That 70's Show, episodes in the first season ran 22 min, and the last ran 21. So between 1982 and 2006, the half-hour show shrunk by 10%. One way they can get back story time is to eliminate the theme song.

Finally, was the noise that was coming through from Rob's end simply his beard rubbing up against whatever mic he was using? (If he still has his beard)