There have been a few releases of music related to local TV shows that we know of:
Themes on 45
Not a lot of these:
Albums
Comedy shows
Kid's TV
Still looking for the soundtrack from All For One (1989).
Miscellaneous
Loxene Gold Disc Awards
Cassettes
Must have been more cassettes from Kiwi TV shows than these.
Television Gold (All Time Favourite TV Themes)
This compilation album is of particular interest as a rare example of NZ songs being showcased alongside the international themes.
Issued in New Zealand by Record Co's in conjunction with TV One, this contained 24 TV Show Theme tunes/songs. It was released on LP and Tape only. Mixed in with some memorable overseas tunes there are a couple of NZ Classics.
- Nadia's Theme (The Young & The Restless) - Roger Williams
- Sutherland's Law - Scottish National Orchestra
- Theme From Rush - Brian May & The A.B.C. Showband
- Sweet Charity (TV1's '79 Olympics theme) - Paul Mauriat & Orch
- Calypso (The Undersea World Of Jacques Cousteau
- Theme From M*A*S*H - The Mash
- Close to Home - Jack Body
- Family At War - Vaughan Williams 6th Symp
- Coronation Street - Alan Tew
- Chitter Chatter - (Theme from Joe and Koro)
- Hawaii Five-O - Norrie Paramor & Orch
- TV1's 6.30 News 6.30pm News - unknown
- Tonight At Nine (from Prologue to A Hot August Night) [Neil Diamond]
- Hillbilly Child (Theme from Country Calender) - Alan Moorhouse
- The Lotus Eaters - Stavros Xarhakos Orch
- Star Trek Theme - The Inside Startrek Orch
- The Hanged Man - Bullet
- Happy Days - The Silver Studs
- The Sweeney - The Alan Tew Orch
- The New Avengers - Laurie Johnson Orch
- Warship - Band Of H.M. Welsh Guards
- The Pallisers - New Philharmonic Orch
- War And Peace (Czarist National Anthem) - The Band Of H.M. Welsh Guards.
Telethon charity 45s
Marketing Department tie-ins
Occasionally TVNZ seems to have ventured into releases that had only vague or no relationship with shows in an effort to make some money.
Ready to Roll was an obvious excuse to release some chart topper complications so they couldn't really resist putting the logo to use:
But these two don't make any mention of anything on screen:
Christchurch label Golden Editions released a series of compilation albums that had "TVNZ" in their catalogue numbers, but aside from the occasional "seen on TV" label they doesn't seem to have been any direct link to the TV screen.
A slowly growing number the songs mentioned here can be found on music services such as spotify:
From New Zealand Listener in 1969.
Time is just coming up to 7 in the evening. The telly is turned on and we are saddened by the weather forecast. Then music heralds the beginning of a show. This is the signal to settle down to an evening
Viewers always associate their favourite programmes with the accompanying musical themes. For oversea shows these are specially written and many have appeared on commercial discs - The Prisoner, Danger Man, Mission Impossible among others. Many in Britain, The US and ... were released purely for TV and Film use.
For nearly all locally-produced shows, the themes are on records chosen from catalogues sent out by record publishers under such headings as sea
, romantic
, industrial
, electronic
. These themes are carefully chosen to fit in with the mood of the programme.
Obviously the techniques for writing this sort of music are very different from those used by other composers. The pieces must be short and suitable for editing and fade-outs. Producers can get an idea of the type of music on a particular track by the comments on the jacket or in the publisher's catalogue. Spider's Web - Bizarre tension with warm undertones. Many editing points for links
; Cuban riot. Fast - driving dramatic. Slightly tongue-in-cheek.
Probably because specially-written themes for a few New Zealand television productions are heard so often, inquiries are sometimes made about what the tunes are and where records of them may be obtained. However, none is at present [1969] available on commercially-produced records.
Some of the hired tunes are well known. Of the local programmes Sportsview (WNTV-l) uses an orchestral arrangement of the song It's Not Unusual. The children's programme Let's See uses Electronic Can-Can and WNTV-1's On Camera is introduced by an unusual arrangement of the popular Music to Watch Girls by. C'mon In heralds AKTV-Z's On Camera. Three's a Crowd [Might be by David Lee] and Ka Boom Boom do the same for CHTV-3 and DNTV-2 respectively.
But, sadly for those who would like to own records of some of the themes of our other local features, these are all contained on discs from record libraries. and are not on open sale.
Their names often echo the type of programme they introduce: for example, Sports Magazine-Happy-go-lively(?). These are fair enough, but what about Column Comment? Its theme goes by the name of Took!
Looking at New Zealand uses, appropriately, a piece called Fancy Free, The current events programmes Compass and Gallery are introduced by tracks labelled simply High Tension. The one for Compass is by Laurie Johnson, who wrote The Avengers music.
Wellington's Town and Around uses a piece called Lightning Bug. No reflection on its compere, Peter Read, whose The Night Sky has had two themes, one from a library (Dark Fantastic), the other an extract from The Planets, an orchestral suite by Gustav Holst first performed in 1918.
In Auckland Town and Around is introduced by a different tune each night. Christchurch uses Hot Line, and Dunedin Cross-town Commuter (Might be by Tony Hatch?). Both are available on 45s.
Finally, the News. This uses a march specially written by Ashley Heenan for the NZBC and it's a fair guess that this would be about the best-known piece of music in the country.
I've also found a fragment of a similar New Zealand TV Weekly Channel Check article from 12 May, 1969 which also identifies some theme tunes:
With DNTV2's current major projects well in hand, and all running reasonably smoothly, We thought it was time to give some attention to the little things that we take so much for granted in our day to day viewing. For example, those tunes which so often go unnoticed before and after the regular programmes. Take Town and Around.-it had a brand-new introduction this year (and quite a smart idea it was, too!), but did you know its lively and attention-getting theme tune goes under the name of Soul limbo.. Dunedin's weather switching from sunshine to hail storms as it does, the selection of Bitter Sweet Samba for the introductions to the Weather Report could scarcely have been more apt. And housewives, every time the family asks What's that?
when they catch you humming the On Camera theme sound really knowledgeable, tell them it's called Pussyfoot. Perhaps the most interesting of all, from a musical point of view is that which accompanies the News Report. Known as simply The News Theme, it was written by Ashley Heenan ... and is played by the National Youth Orchestra.
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