CD(s) of the Week: Game Show Themes

"THE BEST OF TV QUIZ & GAME SHOW THEMES"
(Varese Sarabande, 2000)

and

"CLASSIC TV GAME SHOW THEMES"
(Varese Sarabande, 1998)

As the classic Monty Python catch-phrase goes: "...And now for something completely different." I was browsing through my CDs recently and came across these two titles, nestled in at the end of the soundtracks section. Not being able to decide what to watch on TV/DVD or what to listen to that evening, I popped these two discs in and was soon time-warped back to my youth. Back in the days when I was outgrowing cartoons but wasn't quite ready for the meaningful programs of prime-time, I became hooked on game shows. This was a good few presidential elections ago, long before The Game Show Network (in conjunction with whom these two collections were produced) existed, and long before the grey had invaded Bob Barker's and Alex Trebek's hair.

I suppose it was unavoidable that, with my budding interest in music, I would become enamored with the theme music recorded for these shows ... music as unnaturally peppy as the programs' hosts. But, when you listen a little more closely to these tunes, removed from the applause of the studio audience and the chatter of the shows' announcers (who could almost always take on the hosts in an enthusiasm contest), you'll find a surprisingly varied and innovative genre of music. The goal of the game show theme has always been to capture and focus the excitement and fun of the game, and each composer had their own approach to doing so. The two most prolific composers spanning these collections, Robert Israel and Bob Cobert, took what became the "textbook" approach: bouncy, jazzy tunes with traditional instrumentation, sometimes arranged to sound in step with whatever trends were prevalent in popular music at the time.

There are a number of curiosities hidden in these collections, from the bad (the two vocal numbers: "The Wizard of Odds", sung with unintentionally silly results by future sitcom star Alan Thicke; and "Monopoly", in which the O's sung by the female vocalist in the spell-it-out duet sound bizarrely sexual) to the good (the earlier, all-synthesizer rendition of "The Joker's Wild" which was extremely innovative for its time, and sounds like the Disneyland "Main Street Electrical Parade" probably because it was done by the same composers; and the long-forgotten original "Wheel of Fortune" theme, which was composed by the forementioned Mr. Thicke and is a thousand times better than the simplistic, repetitive one that took its place), as well as the legendary staples that we're still hearing today ("Jeopardy!", "The Price Is Right", and "Family Feud"). And by the way, don't be concerned about the duplicate titles you may see in the track listings ... they're all different themes, mostly from various incarnations of the show over the decades.

The only quibble I have about these albums is that their titles probably should have been reversed: there are many more original, vintage themes on the disc called "The Best Of TV Quiz & Game Show Themes", whereas all the more popular themes that more people recognize can be found on the disc named "Classic TV Game Show Themes". But, the fact that these discs collect (as far as I can determine) all the ORIGINAL themes and no re-recordings -- a highly commendable achievement that couldn't have been easy to accomplish -- makes such an imperfection easily forgivable. The childhood bliss that the "Tic Tac Dough" and "High Rollers" themes (my two sentimental favorites) whisk me into every time I hear them made these discs worth every penny of the purchase price.