You're listening to Part Time Genius, the production of Kaleidoscope and iHeartRadio. Guess well, will what's that?
Mango?
So I have been practicing mentalism.
I hate to say this, but I actually find that hard to believe.
I'm gonna prove it to you so I can make you and everyone listening to this think of the same word at the same time. All Right, I'm ready, Okay, here we go. Who are you gonna call?
Ghostbusters? I mean, that's funny, but I don't think that counts as mentalism. Mango.
Yeah, I know. It just really proves how iconic the song is. But apparently the Ghostbuster's theme song was difficult for composer Ray Parker Junior to write. And why is that Well, for one very specific reason. He had trouble figuring out a way to fit the word ghostbusters into the lyrics. It turns out it's a pretty weird word to put in a song starting with what are you gonna rhyme with Ghostbusters? Lackluster?
I get a feather duster insurance adjuster, Like. It feels like he had a few options there.
Yeah, but none of those are going to get people hyped at a party. But According to Ray Parker Junior, the director Ivan Rerightman was adamant that the word ghostbusters being the lyrics. Apparently, the music itself came pretty easy.
When Parker joined the project, the movie was in the editing stage with I Want a New Drug by Huey Lewis as a placeholder theme song, so Parker created a track with a similar riff, but he just couldn't figure out how to sing the word ghostbusters in a catchy way, and he was actually down to the wire with the deadline to get this done. Finally, inspiration struck when he remembered that in the movie the guys have a commercial with their phone number, and that led to this undeniable line,
who you Gonna Call Ghostbusters? Which I will now have stuck in my head for the rest of the day.
But I'm not complaining.
Well, get used to the feeling, because today we're uncovering some real earworms. We've got nine catchy facts about theme songs, so let's dive in.
Hey, their podcast listeners, welcome the part time genius. I'm Will Pearson and as always I'm joined by my good friend Mangesh hot Ticket. And there on the other side of the booth. Wait, where did where did Dylan go?
I don't know, but I think I hear that song Return of.
The Mac in my earphones. Okay, yeah, he's actually walking into Return of the Mac like it's his own personal theme songkh He's so smooth. That's our paler introducer Dylan.
That song is catchy, and I'm also really glad he returned to the book.
Yeah, me too. We need this episode recorded. And actually, to bring it back to your incredible mentalism trick, my next theme song has a similar widespread impact. It's the one that starts in West Philadelphia ring a bell.
There born and Raise exactly.
It's from the Fresh Prince of bel Air. And here's what's funny. The show almost didn't have that iconic wrap because executive producer Quincy Jones wrote a whole different song for the theme. But when Will Smith heard it, he hated it.
Can you imagine telling Quincy Jones that you don't like something he wrote.
I have never told Quincy Jones that. But he had produced so many hits, from Sinatra's Fly Me to the Moon to Ray Charles in the Heat of the Night to We Are the World, so many of Michael Jackson's hits from bad to thriller, don't stop to you gain enough? I mean Will Smith knew Quincy was a very big deal.
Now.
Of course, Will Smith and DJ Jazzy Jeff had won a Grammy in nineteen eighty nine for parents Just Don't Understand, which I think puts them in exact same selon right. So this was Smith's first major acting job. So as he was telling Jazzy Jeff he couldn't speak up about the songs, Jazzy Jeff came up with a different solution. He said, why don't we try recording our own version of a theme song?
So much humors? Yeah? I know.
So in a later interview, Jeff explained that Will Smith often struggled with developing a concept for a song, but once the concept was there, like in this case, the plot of the show, it was easier for him to write the lyrics. So it actually came together really quickly.
And how does Quincy Jones react to all of this?
So, according to Smith, when he played it for Jones, he said, quote, that's good. Mine's a piece of You can use your mentalism to fill in the blank. So the song was approved and just in the Nick of time jazz. Jeff remembers there being just three weeks between recording the theme song demo and the day the show actually premiered.
That is incredible. Well, I think we can give Quincy some consolation with this next one, because even if he didn't write the Fresh Prince song, he did did write the Austin Powers theme and he did it in just twenty minutes.
I actually didn't remember I had anything to do with that, and that is unbelievably.
Fast, truly, and it's a piece with so many parts. There are flutes, trombone, drums, and they all add so much character throughout the track. The song is called Soul bossa Nova. I love that, but he didn't write it for the movie. Jones actually wrote this piece way back in nineteen sixty two, so that's over three decades before Mike Myers danced to it in the opening scene of Austin Powers. The song is really a product of its time though. Bossa Nova was a trendy genre of Brazilian
music in the early sixties. And I didn't know this before, but the term means new thing or new style.
Which I guess could also describe Mike Myer's comedy in the nineteen nineties. But what set this new style apart well.
The bossonova genre was defined by its quieter sound compared to the traditional samba. It was rhythmically complex and this jazzy style, but it usually featured flute and saxophones. Quincy Jones had spent time in Brazil during this Boston Nova movement and he got inspired, so he wrote Soul Bosonova soon after he left the country. He'd eventually make a self proclaimed fortune on the song, but that almost didn't happen.
In his autobiography, Jones writes about a failed tour of Europe where his all star band was incredibly successful, but the budgeting was terrible and he calls it an economic disaster. He said the tour taught him the difference between music and the music business, and he had to actually sell his music catalog to make up for the losses. But as he made money, he bought back the rights to his song for one hundred five thousand dollars, a price
seven times higher than he sold him for. But as Quincy Jones put it, quote that song, it won't go away. Mike Myers used it for the themes of Austin Powers films. It was also used in the movie The Pawnbroker and
a Woody Allen film, Take the Money and Run. But perhaps most importantly, it was the theme song for a popular Canadian game show called Definition that ran from nineteen seventy four to nineteen eighty nine, which is how he really made his money on this song, and it's also where young Mike Myers.
First heard it.
By the way, the piano player on the track is Leilo Schiffrin, who wrote the Mission Impossible theme song, which I know is on your list.
Yeah, no, spoilers, stopped piking my list, but yes, the Mission Impossible theme song was written by Argentinian jazz pianist Leilo Schiffrin. This was in nineteen sixty six, and this song is known for its unique use of a five to four time signature. I think we can all hear it in our heads. But the notes go from two long beats to two short beats and then that repeats. Of course, well, those long and short notes can actually
be translated into Mars code as dash dash dot dot. Now, in Morse code M is two dashes and I is two dots, so the song actually spells out m I that is.
Really cool, and it's kind of like an easter egg in music notes exactly.
But also that rhythm and those notes make it very identified, which is basically Schiffrin nailing the assignment.
I think, why why is that? Well?
When the show's creator, Bruce Geller called Schiffrin to ask him to write the song, he had a very detailed request. He said he was looking for something that when a viewer went to the kitchen to get a soda, if they heard the theme music, they would immediately know that Mission Impossible was playing on TV.
I love that. That's how he was thinking about it, and obviously that's what theme songs do. It's still true today.
Yeah, and Schiffrin gained some pretty high profile fans for it. So, for example, he went on to score Bruce Lee's Enter the Dragon. Lee requested him personally because he liked listening to the Mission Impossible soundtrack while he was working out.
I love the idea of Bruce Lee just like listening to the Mission Impossible soundtrack over and over, punching and kicking. Well, oddly enough, my next theme song also has a hidden message in it, and I want to tell you about it. But first a little break. Welcome back to Part Time Genius, where we're counting down nine facts about some of our favorite theme songs. If you like what you're hearing, be sure to subscribe on your favorite podcast app, and please
leave us a rating and review. We love, love, love hearing from you.
All right, well, speaking of things we love to hear, I'm curious what's your next fact?
So if you've ever wondered what's going on with the Frasier theme song, first of all, you are not alone, and second, I have answers. So if you're called a theme song, there's a line that goes toss salads and scrambled eggs have a combination that no one has ever ordered or wanted to eat together. And yet it's in the intro to one of the most beloved nineties sitcoms.
Yeah, I have to man, I never understood what that was about, so apparently there's some metaphor built into it. The composer of the song is Bruce Miller, and the producer has asked him to create something jazzy and play him this Joni Mitchell song for inspiration. They also didn't want a song to reference psychiatry, psychology, or really anything specific about the plot of the show. I guess unlike Fresh Prince.
Yeah, it's kind of the opposite. But Miller went to his friend Darryl Finnissy to write the lyrics, and Finishy sent back the version We Know and Love Today with all that like toss salads and scrambled eggs lines. He used those foods as a veiled reference to Fraser's patients, things that were quote mixed up, and the rest of the lyrics have meaning as well. I hear the blues of Colin. Those are obviously Fraser's patients calling into his radio show and he's got them pegged, which is how
he can help them through their problems. And yet those toss solads and scrambled eggs calling again at the end of the song. That's you know, the callers still calling.
Yeah, I mean, I really thought those lyrics were just kind of nonsense and more creating a vibe or something.
Yeah, me too. And another interesting tibit is that Bruce Miller wanted meltor Mae to sing the theme song, but Kelsey Grammer told the show's producers he wanted to sing it, and obviously Grammar got the gig.
Yeah, huh, that's pretty fun.
All right.
Well, I'm going to one up your old sitcom theme song. I'm going even older Mango to the theme the Gilligan's Island, written by show's creator and producer Sherwood Schwartz with George wil who also wrote the song It's the most wonderful time of the year. As most of our older listeners will know, the theme song was a TV classic, using a sea shanty style to describe how Gilligan and the gang they got stranded on this island after what was supposed to be just a three hour tour, of course,
but there were actually different versions over the years. In fact, the original Gilligan's Island theme didn't even mention Professor or Mary Anne. Can you imagine this?
Yeah, I mean those are pretty big characters to leave out. So how did this happen?
Well, the story goes that it was because of actress Tina Luise's contract. She played Ginger the movie star, and apparently one of the details in her contract was that she would be named last in the credits. So the song finished with the movie and the rest without any mention of the Professor or Mary Anne. Sherwood Schwartz wrote a book about his time working on Gilligan's Island, and while he didn't exactly confirm that fact, he did write that quote. The characters had to be introduced in a
certain order because of contractual obligations. But before season two, the actor who played Gilligan, Bob Denver, requested the other two cast mates be added to the song, and of course they were, but Don Wells and Russell Johnson, who played Marianne and the Professor, seemed unbothered by the original emission. According to Wells, they used to write each other notes signed love the rest.
I love that. So jumping from the sixties to the seventies, I discovered a story of a theme song composer who also wanted to be the lead part in the project. And I'm talking about Isaac Hayes, who composed the theme from Shaft. He was approached to score the movie in nineteen seventy one, but he was more focused on whether he could play the lead role of private detective John Shaft. And he asked the director, Gordon Parks, if he could audition,
and he kind of got this lukewarm response. The director said, okay, but remember you've got to do the music. According to Hayes, he went home and immediately started telling all his friends about how he's going to try out for the role, not even mentioning the actual job he had scoring the music. Within about two weeks he found out, however, that Richard Brountree was cast a Shaft and he'd just be doing the music.
I mean, I guess he overcame his disappointment and did make one of the most iconic theme songs of all time.
Right, yeah, it's pretty unforgettable and amazingly, the Shaft single and album hit number one. Hayes also earned an OSCAR for Best Original Song, making him only the third black artist to do so at the time. All right, well, let's go back to the small screen for the next one. So the Rembrandts are famously known for the Friends theme
I'll be there for You. In fact, mentalf loss Rights quote when Friends producer Kevin S. Bright sent the pilot episode to the Rembrandts, its placeholder theme song was RIM's It's the end of the World.
We know it and I feel fine. We all know that song very well, which he was hoping they could emulate if they took the gig. But before they could get to writing. Apparently, Friends co creator Marta Kaufman's husband Michael Scloff wrote the song and he got help with the words from Ali Willis, who co wrote Earth Wind and Fire's hit September, and then the rem Brands brandified it. I don't know if you knew that term.
So now.
At the time, the rem Brands were working on their third album, and because this was just a theme song for a TV show, the original version was only forty two seconds long, but as the song became a hit, the theme song did too. In fact, the band learned that a radio station in Nashville was playing the track on a loop just to satisfy the crazy call and
listener demand. But the idea started spreading to other stations too, and other DJs got the same idea, So the band wrote an extended version to add it to their album, even though one hundred thousand copies of the album had already been printed. They decided to do this anyway, and because the producers of Friends had helped write the theme song, they were in the studio along with the Rembrandts working
on that extended track. Pretty wild, isn't it now? First, the rem Brands were pretty annoyed by having to add the sitcom track to the album because it didn't really fit into the arc of the album that they had already made. But in the end they were pretty okay with it since it helped them sell a lot more copies. By the way, here's a little quiz for you. How many claps do you think are in the song after that first line? Hmm? It's kind of a trick question. What were you going to say?
Though?
For I think or okay, there are four claps then a drum comes in. But for anyone who was unsure, there's no need to be embarrassed. Apparently Matt LeBlanc didn't know how many claps to do when filming the recent Friends Reunion either.
Well, speaking of friends, that ties perfectly into my last fact about two unlikely friends brought together by a theme song. And I'm talking about Paul Simon and baseball great Joe DiMaggio. And the song, of course is Missus Robinson, written by Simon for the film The Graduate. Now the song today's the lyric where have you Gone? Joe DiMaggio? Only Joe DiMaggio didn't know how to feel about that question at first, and a few years after it came out, Simon and
Dmaggio ran into each other at a restaurant. According to Simon, DiMaggio said, quote, what I don't understand is why you ask where I've gone. I just did a mister coffee commercial. I'm a spokesman for the Bowery Savings Bank. I haven't gone anywhere.
It's a pretty hilarious way for Joe Demaggio to describe himself.
Right, And this gave Simon the chance to explain the line. What it meant was where have all the heroes gone? You know, all the great heroes? And he didn't mean Demagio specifically. And I guess the explanation satisfied Demagio because the two became friends for life. Simon even wrote an obituary for DiMaggio after he passed and sang the song in centerfield of Yankee Stadium to honor him. Now, the irony is, according to Paul Simon, he was always more of a Mickey Mantle guy.
I have to say a mango that fact is worthy of today's trophy. So congratulations, I love it.
Well, that is it for today's episod. We'll be back next week with another brand new episode, and in the meantime, you can find us on Instagram at part Time Genius. Research and writing for this episode was done by our old friend Meredith Danko. Thank you Meredith, and from Dylan, Gabe, Mary, Will and myself, thank you so much for listening. Part Time Genius is a production of Kaleidoscope and iHeartRadio. This show is hosted by Will Pearson and Me Mongage Heatikler
and research by our good pal Mary Philip Sandy. Today's episode was engineered and produced by the wonderful Dylan Fagan with support from Tyler Klang. The show is executive produced for iHeart by Katrina Norvell and Ali Perry, with social media support from Sasha Gay, trustee Dara Potts and buy Any Shorey. For more podcasts from Kaleidoscope and iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.