EDITOR’S CORNER
Sunday, Monday, happy days; Tuesday, Wednesday, happy days; Thursday, Friday happy days; Saturday, the weekend comes; groovin’ all week with you.
Are you humming it now?
Chances are probably pretty good you know the tune.
PHMG is an “audio branding” service. No, an audio brand is not the marks left by metal earbuds, it uses music to sync product and artistry in the minds of potential consumers.
What does that mean? Ever found yourself humming the latest McDonald’s or Coke jingle?
If you are humming the “Happy Days” theme, you’re not alone.
PHMG recently conducted a survey to find America’s most memorable theme songs and The Fonz, Richie and the gang won it hands down.
“Happy Days” was named the favorite by 21 percent, followed by “Fresh Prince of Bel-Air” with 14.
Tying for third, all at 8 percent, were “Cheers,” “Gilligan’s Island” and “Friends.”
Notice all the oldies?
That’s audio branding at its finest, notes Daniel Lafferty, director of music and voice for PHMG. “The fact that ‘Happy Days’ still sticks in the memory more than 30 years after its last episode was recorded might be a bit of a shock, but it only highlights the power of a strong audio identity.”
Indeed. Now, we have a bit of a situation on our hands.
I’m a TV theme song junky. In fact, on my car audio USB I have about 225 themes in one program. I like to listen to them when I drive.
It can last me from Rock-dale to Atoka, Oklahoma. And has.
Of course, I know all of those themes and like them.
But they’re not my favorites. And if I were asked for my favorites, I would have some ironic answers.
I’m an Anglophile when it comes to television. Give me the BBC, “The Virginian” and “Gunsmoke” and I can exist on nothing else. And have for many years.
What’s ironic? PHMG is British. They have a dot-UK web address and their press release refers to a program as a “programme.”
They list headquarters as Manchester and Chicago but I think “Chicago” is probably a typo for “Glasgow.”
So, I appreciate them sending me a press release about American TV themes but if I had a vote, it would be for “The Prisoner,” a fantastic British series from much longer ago than “Happy Days.”
It made no sense. It had the strangest ending episode in the history of broadcast media. It messed with your mind. It left you exasperated.
It was wonderful.
And its theme. Oh my! It was no-holds-barred in your face with loud, bravado music, lightning bolts, a kidnapping, desk-pounding, dark, dramatic camera angles that would have been at home in 1930s German cinema and a funky little car.
And it works as a theme. “The Prisoner” theme tells you the back story and sets you up to watch the episode.
So do some of the themes cited in the survey, by the way— “Fresh Prince of Bel-Air,” “Gilligan’s Island” and “The Jeffersons,” which was on the regional list for the Southwest.
I would have also voted for a quirky American theme. I like quirky, or have you noticed?
The great Ernie Kovacs had as his theme for virtually all of his too-short life a piece called “Oriental Blues.”
It wasn’t oriental. And it wasn’t blues.
Happy days.
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