Mr. Phelps, if you like that theme, you must know about Tom Dissevelt and Kid Baltan, right?
Strange how this and the Soviet composers thread would happen to reappear, as lately I've been grooving to the "new to sound old" sub genre of "Sovietwave", a laid-back, melancholy, largely electronic music which brings to mind the *fantastic* album posted above. Sovietwave is part Hearts of Space, part early New Order, and the world as depicted in David Cronenberg's Scanners, but also with a fair amount of my 1970s-early 1980s planetarium memories thrown in for bad measure.
I'm sure Wild, Wild World of Animals is what set me off on this stuff, so many years ago.
Here in the UK, Anglia Television made the wildlife series SURVIVAL for many years. It had a few different themes over the years, but probably my favourites were two early ones:
The other one was marred by a somewhat overdramatic voiceover but still a nice little tune:
I have no idea who composed these pieces, or if they were library music or specially composed or what.
The part where the two bears attack each other was always depressing.
It looked like one was quickly reasserting its dominance over the other--like in those old threads about which films had "roadshow" presentations.
I like the way the progression of the animals goes from lush tropical regions to cold, unforgiving landscapes. How very 1970s.
Was the 1970s animal crime rate high? Were Baby Boomer animals as violent as their human counterparts?
The 1970s were the golden age of "educational" programs, or maybe it's just that I was a wee lad then.
I'd really like to see this show get an official release, not that it will ever happen.
Well, 70s educational programming had that irresistible primitive synth music, as exemplified by the old PBS logo bumper.
Remember how 1970s social studies films always showed footage of crowds walking down city blocks, waiting for the "walk" signal? They would cut between shots of the crowd and the traffic lights.
But 1950s educational films were a golden age of sorts, featuring my beloved genre of happy housewife music, or what Mr. Phelps refers to as bustling metropolis music. While I would argue that the two are closely related sub-genres, with lots of stylistic overlap, each has some distinctive characteristics.
This show was syndicated. I seem to remember it coming on at a weird time where I lived, like maybe 7 pm on a Saturday, after dinner but before prime time.
Both the opening and closing themes are seared into my memory, but I had forgotten all about the show and themes until Mr. Phelps started this thread.
