I’ve decided to write a blog about Earle Hagen. There is probably zero interest in this, but my quarantine weekends are so empty and mundane that writing something–anything–at least feels like hitting my binge-watching brain with jumper cables.
I finally finished the massive “Best Of Mayberry” Time-Life DVD set which includes episodes of “The Andy Griffith Show”, “Gomer Pyle USMC”, and “Mayberry RFD.” And I am reminded of the brilliance of Earle Hagen, the man who did the music for each of these series and others.
Music in this case does not just mean theme songs, although Hagen created some of the best-remembered and most iconic TV themes of a generation:
In addition to the themes, Hagen did the underscore for each episode. Many episodes used the same music cues over the years, but special episodes received special attention. Listen to the music in the final moments of “Opie The Birdman”:
We frequently talk about how valuable music is to a radio commercial–it adds momentum, energy or emotion depending on the situation. The emotion in that scene is made even more potent by the music.
“The Andy Griffith Show” is particularly noteworthy for its use of reocurring music elements. This piece of music was used so frequently in the course of the series, it became the opening theme for “Mayberry RFD”, the follow-up series:
And Barney Fife had his own musical identification, named “Manhunt”:
Aunt Bee had her own theme too…and this one was the inspiration for this blog. It’s a piece of music that is heard frequently in “The New Housekeeper”, the 1960 premiere episode of “The Andy Griffith Show”. (Aunt Bee arrives to take care of Andy and Opie but Opie isn’t having it.) And it is heard again in the 1968 premiere episode of “Mayberry RFD” (Aunt Bee is challenged with life on a farm as she begins her new role as caretaker to Sam and his son Mike).
As someone who can’t read a note of music, this kind of thing is like a magic trick to me. A piece of music elicits emotions and feelings in two seperate (but not quite identical) situations from TV episodes written and aired 8 years apart.
I’ve been focusing on Mayberry music because I spent…hours and hours…watching those episodes. But I have to include a tiny bit of “Dick Van Dyke” in here. With this series Hagen’s role was to arrange and orchestrate standards and showtunes performed in episodes by the Petries, Buddy and Sally.
OH! And Earle Hagen composed “Harlem Nocturne”.
AND! After composing the rural soundtrack to Mayberry for years he wrote this funky TV theme:
Is that everything? Okay, we’ll throw this in too.
(Marlo Thomas, by the way, is the daughter of Danny, whose classic situation comedy “Make Room For Daddy” featured orchestrations and original music by….Earle Hagen.)
So there’s a little blog about Earle Hagen…one of the unsung heroes of television music, in the same pantheon as Hoyt Curtin, Frank DeVol, and others.
And now I am done with Mayberry for a long while. I just ordered the complete series of “Sergeant Bilko” so you can expect to see the blog about the subtle genius of Joe E. Ross in a couple of weeks.
I am really not going to miss weekends this boring. But hey! Next weekend is Labor Day so three days! Yippee?