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Discovered composers & publishers of music themes


promoguy98

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"Oh, What a Good Friend" wasn't one of the ones listed in the Copyright Office, but that doesn't mean it wasn't them. I was just saying there were compositions listed that were dated as early as 1980. There's "Hey, Look at Us", "Hold That Smile" and "You're Gonna Fall for Us" all dated 1980 (don't know if any of these were used) and "WG"N"tertains You" from 1982 (I know this was - a program with that title shows up in TV listings from '82, and someone on FuzzyMemories says the WGN-tertains You music was used on the Late Movie in the late 80s/early 90s.)

 

Ted Kay was formerly a writer in WGN's Sales Department before he co-founded TMK-Elias, so they probably did a lot of WGN's custom music in the 70s-80s. Perhaps it was even a Frank Gari/WEWS situation, where they did all of it.

 

Gotcha, now some of this information adds up. The signature and style of "Oh, What a Friend" is somewhat similar to the "WG"N"tertains You" material! You are probably correct in that they did a mix of custom things, especially with the Ted Kay connection and being right there in the market. Easy, fast and able to get stuff done!!

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And as for KWGN - which package do you think might have been the Terry Fryer one? ASCAP also lists an image campaign and a movie theme. I can't find any promos or movie opens/bumpers from KWGN in that period - if I could, maybe I could find a melody that matched one of the news themes...

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And as for KWGN - which package do you think might have been the Terry Fryer one? ASCAP also lists an image campaign and a movie theme. I can't find any promos or movie opens/bumpers from KWGN in that period - if I could, maybe I could find a melody that matched one of the news themes...

 

Hmmm, only if we could find a movie or image campaign that would take the guess work out of it. I'll go have a listen through the late 80's to early 90's stuff on the NMSA just to see if anything there reminds me of his WGN sound.
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And as for KWGN - which package do you think might have been the Terry Fryer one? ASCAP also lists an image campaign and a movie theme. I can't find any promos or movie opens/bumpers from KWGN in that period - if I could, maybe I could find a melody that matched one of the news themes...

 

My first thought after giving one listen to each unknown open would be the 1993 theme. I'll help stay on the lookout for any new uploads for KWGN stuff on Youtube.
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Oh, and BMI also lists two more curiosities for Sheldon Elias: "WHTM News Package" and "WISC TV News Package". Perhaps those are their respective "I Love Chicago"-alike packages?

WHTM 1990 and WISC Early 90s even sound sorta similar, similar enough that I'd say you're right.

 

EDIT: You nailed it! Listen to this WISC 10pm tease from 1993. The rendering of the signature is slightly different but there's no mistaking that this is from the same guy as WHTM 1990. We just needed the evening cut to do it.

 

We have a 1991 CBS promo with the current "3", so it's not far off the mark to say WISC might have debuted it in 1991. 1990 is the earliest date I'd give for the theme.

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I know I'm about to go lenghty with the post, relating to WGN. So I'm going first post the two vids that's related to "WGNtertains You/WGN & You". Let me know if this is the piece of music y'all talking about.

 

Here's one of the FuzzyMemories vids with the WGN ID. Yes, they'd played this same piece of music for their Late Night movie opens all the way to when that big swirl "9" logo debuted, and I think after that. Unrelated to this, they played the

, even after the big swirl 9 logo debuted.

 

And here's one of the movie promos playing what appears to be the "WGNtertains You" music. I was dying to know who made this piece of music.

 

Video Courtesy of mycommercials from YT

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Yep that's the one CircleSeven. I am mobile at the moment and couldn't do a reply with quote and get the cursor outside of the reply box easily... So, anyway there were apparently a few mixout variations. For the first time, I just heard "hints" of the WGN 1980 news open a few seconds into the last YouTube video that you embedded. Tell me if you can hear what I'm talking about around 11 seconds into the movie open, same goes for TServo2049 and anyone else. If this is the case. I suspect it's all custom work from potentially TMK-Elias. If it's not them, another co. that comes to mind would be Tuesday Productions. Hopefully we can get a confirmation over some of these works fairly quickly.

 

EDIT: also CircleSeven check out the link that I shared of the "WGN and You" jingle from earlier today. I also saved the audio only in my drop box folder labeled: wgn_jingle_e80s

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Oh, and BMI also lists two more curiosities for Sheldon Elias: "WHTM News Package" and "WISC TV News Package". Perhaps those are their respective "I Love Chicago"-alike packages?

 

Didn't Sheldon Elias also do the WBBM 1988 Package? I surprised that it wasn't mentioned.

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WHTM 1990 and WISC Early 90s even sound sorta similar, similar enough that I'd say you're right.

 

EDIT: You nailed it! Listen to this WISC 10pm tease from 1993. The rendering of the signature is slightly different but there's no mistaking that this is from the same guy as WHTM 1990. We just needed the evening cut to do it.

 

We have a 1991 CBS promo with the current "3", so it's not far off the mark to say WISC might have debuted it in 1991. 1990 is the earliest date I'd give for the theme.

 

I watched an WISC news open from 1993 a few years ago on their website and heard this theme (WHTM 1990). Last month, I searched around YT and watched this video and other WISC commercial breaks from this era which news teases that had this theme and it reconfirmed what already thought. I contacted NMSA to tell him the similarities of these themes and the current 3 may have debuted in late 1990 after David Sanks (longtime former GM) and Tom Bier (longtime ND, still at WISC as GM) started in their positions and the longtime "In Touch With Wisconsin" branding debuted (I saw a Christmas promo with the current 3: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xVryfoyNXAs, but he hasn't changed it yet. Good to see I'm not wrong.

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stevieboy247, where did you hear that Elias did the WBBM 1988 theme? I can't find any info anywhere.

 

I didn't really hear about it anywhere, It's just that when you hear the theme, you can tell it was from him.

 

Check out this video and you'll see what I mean.

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I didn't really hear about it anywhere, It's just that when you hear the theme, you can tell it was from him.

 

Check out this video and you'll see what I mean.

 

I would agree with that assessment. The themes are obviously from the same composer, with similar instrumentation (particularly the background rhythms and the jazzy cuts—this is why the WISC tease screamed at me). They also split the signature in the exact same way.

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I recently dug up an audio clip of a WBOY news open from 1989 with ID at the beginning and open at :07. You can hear it at http://www.matthewsittel.com/ids/mp3/wboy12id89.mp3 and it is leading me to believe that Tuesday Productions did the music piece. USA Network used this piece of music to open its sports telecasts during the early to mid 1980s.

 

I also found video of USA Sports using the package. You can view it at

and the USA Sports hockey open is at 1:47.
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I recently dug up an audio clip of a WBOY news open from 1989 with ID at the beginning and open at :07. You can hear it at http://www.matthewsittel.com/ids/mp3/wboy12id89.mp3 and it is leading me to believe that Tuesday Productions did the music piece. USA Network used this piece of music to open its sports telecasts during the early to mid 1980s.

 

I agree on the early Tuesday/Network Music sound. But I don't know how we could source an ID of that package.

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swingin' hog balls haaaa!! Oh the music, I'm not sure.... it could be a Firstcom track since they've used a few of their cuts for various openings, but I don't recall that cut from back in the day from being in their library. That's not saying it's not there.

 

Seems like I hear a couple of mix diferences between the clip right before :16 and after. (Mainly the sax) It may be a small theme package and not a library cut.... maybe someone else will know this one.

 

Really late to the party. I don't have the complete answer, just a clue--it's from KGTV. As to whether it's a custom package, a library theme or what, I don't know... but I am absolutely obsessed with it! NMSA lists it as "KGTV 1994 News Theme." From the hook I'm guessing it is something custom because of the way it screams "10 News."

 

 

Nice long close from YouTube:

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Really late to the party. I don't have the complete answer, just a clue--it's from KGTV. As to whether it's a custom package, a library theme or what, I don't know... but I am absolutely obsessed with it! NMSA lists it as "KGTV 1994 News Theme." From the hook I'm guessing it is something custom because of the way it screams "10 News."

 

 

Nice long close from YouTube:

 

We believe it's Silvertree because their client list includes KGTV, and it has to be pre-2001. Also Silvertree was *in* San Diego, like Peters and Tuesday.

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We believe it's Silvertree because their client list includes KGTV, and it has to be pre-2001. Also Silvertree was *in* San Diego, like Peters and Tuesday.

 

Glad you guys mentioned KGTV using this theme again... I must have somehow overlooked the fact that they used this theme, along with the Channel 7 newscast link that someone had linked earlier in the thread. That's a nice long example of the theme too! Agree with Raymie that Silvertree seems to be the top thought being that they were in the same market and based upon the Silvertree client list. We have also pondered over the idea if Silvertree had composed the WTOG 1993 - WAKA late 80's/early 90's theme. With Bo Donovan having passed away in recent years, gotta wonder if anyone still even has access to any paperwork or reels or if all of that material met the fate of the mean, green dumpster long ago.

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I got another theme that needs to be solved, but its not just the composer that needs to be identified but also the name of the piece of music. When I used to travel to Shreveport as a little kid, I remember hearing a theme that was used on KTAL's newscasts from about 1996 to 2001 (during the NewsCenter 6 era). I believe it was production music, as I have heard it in a couple of commercials elsewhere during the early/mid-2000s. It was kind of a light music piece featuring piano and trumpets.

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I got another theme that needs to be solved, but its not just the composer that needs to be identified but also the name of the piece of music. When I used to travel to Shreveport as a little kid, I remember hearing a theme that was used on KTAL's newscasts from about 1996 to 2001 (during the NewsCenter 6 era). I believe it was production music, as I have heard it in a couple of commercials elsewhere during the early/mid-2000s. It was kind of a light music piece featuring piano and trumpets.

 

I'd need to hear the piece first before I could begin digging, unfortunately.

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I'd need to hear the piece first before I could begin digging, unfortunately.

 

I'm not really sure where to find it. It's not in the NMSA, nobody has submitted it yet. I remember how the melody went (there was a telegraphic sound in parts of it), all I can tell you is that the end refrain of the piece is similar to the commercial break bumper used on The Rush Limbaugh Show during that period.
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While I ponder the piece tmanokc posted about, I'm also curious about a theme used in that market. I used to visit some family there as a kid between 88-91. Who am I "kidding" I'll grow up when I'm put in the ground! Anyway, it's a KSLA piece. The NMSA has the theme listed as KSLA 83.

 

A couple of things, I do remember a much faster variation used on their 5 o'clock show, that was much more upbeat and lasted well into 1990, while the other newscasts had been using the Aircraft/Soundtrack cuts... Secondly, being the music geek that I am, I visited the guy there who was the "audio" production director. Believe it or not, they had that position at the time. He mixed, reworked and EQ'd their commercial and promotional pieces. Now - he did tell me that it came from Dallas. That's all I know! He was also nice enough to dub off all of the tracks they used on the other newscasts from the Aircraft CD's. I should have pressed for more info and got a copy of the "Dallas" stuff. I suppose that at least knowing it came from Dallas narrows it down a bit.

 

Check out the cut in my dropbox folder titled: ksla 83-88_unknown.mp3 if anyone wants to take a stab at it.

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I'm not really sure where to find it. It's not in the NMSA, nobody has submitted it yet. I remember how the melody went (there was a telegraphic sound in parts of it), all I can tell you is that the end refrain of the piece is similar to the commercial break bumper used on The Rush Limbaugh Show during that period.

 

Thanks for the info. All of that helps a little. Shreveport doesn't happen to have a ton of BMI/ASCAP entries as some other markets do. Yeah, there are some, but not nearly enough titles with station call letters attached to the name, which makes finding some of these feel like going through a rat maze.
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