Numero Cinco
New Member
No one who frequents this site will forget Chuck Barris's use of "Whipped Cream," "Lollipops and Roses," and (less frequently) "Spanish Flea" on the ABC weekday afternoon game show, The Dating Game. I wonder, however, who else out there remembers at least two other network game shows, both broadcast in the mid-60s, that used TJB music cues:
Treasure Island (ABC, early afternoons): This was an exotic/strange show, set on two (man-made?) islands in the lagoon of an resort hotel somewhere, in which contestants competed against each to decipher riddles that, by the show's end, actually had them digging up a buried treasure chest. (No, I am not making this up.) The host of the show was John Bartholomew Tucker, a fellow whose distinctive voice was later used in probably hundreds of television commercials, notably for Owens-Corning insulation and featuring The Pink Panther. Anyway: On Treasure Island, the music you heard while players scurried around like mad against the clock and each other was a drop-needle cue from up-tempo TJB songs of the era. "Bittersweet Samba" and "Green Peppers" were two I recall.
Personality (NBC, late mornings): The host was Broadway and television actor Larry Blyden, who welcomed three new celebrity players each week. Its theme song was "Struttin' with Maria," always omitting the opening cymbals, drums, and bass. I remember getting hooked by that peppy little number, wondering what its name was and which album carried it. (My first TJB records were purchased out of production sequence.)
Finally, I can barely remember a syndicated game-show of the same era that used different TJB cues for the final, grand-prize question (modeled on "Final Jeopardy"). Just about the only thing I can recall about this show was a Herb arrangement, used only at the end: "A Walk in the Black Forest," for example.
I don't expect anyone to do anything with this trivial information—but if it doesn't belong on this forum, where in cyberspace would I put it?
Treasure Island (ABC, early afternoons): This was an exotic/strange show, set on two (man-made?) islands in the lagoon of an resort hotel somewhere, in which contestants competed against each to decipher riddles that, by the show's end, actually had them digging up a buried treasure chest. (No, I am not making this up.) The host of the show was John Bartholomew Tucker, a fellow whose distinctive voice was later used in probably hundreds of television commercials, notably for Owens-Corning insulation and featuring The Pink Panther. Anyway: On Treasure Island, the music you heard while players scurried around like mad against the clock and each other was a drop-needle cue from up-tempo TJB songs of the era. "Bittersweet Samba" and "Green Peppers" were two I recall.
Personality (NBC, late mornings): The host was Broadway and television actor Larry Blyden, who welcomed three new celebrity players each week. Its theme song was "Struttin' with Maria," always omitting the opening cymbals, drums, and bass. I remember getting hooked by that peppy little number, wondering what its name was and which album carried it. (My first TJB records were purchased out of production sequence.)
Finally, I can barely remember a syndicated game-show of the same era that used different TJB cues for the final, grand-prize question (modeled on "Final Jeopardy"). Just about the only thing I can recall about this show was a Herb arrangement, used only at the end: "A Walk in the Black Forest," for example.
I don't expect anyone to do anything with this trivial information—but if it doesn't belong on this forum, where in cyberspace would I put it?