(accidentally sent wrong obit earlier) >Newsgroups: alt.obituaries >Subject: Vic Mizzy, Composer of `Addams Family' song dies at 93 >Date: Mon, 19 Oct 2009 18:04:36 -0700 (PDT)
http://www.miamiherald.com/news/breaking-news/story/1290481.html Vic Mizzy, a film and television composer best known for writing the memorable theme songs for the 1960s sit-coms Green Acres and The Addams Family, has died. He was 93. Mizzy died of heart failure Saturday at his home in Los Angeles' Bel- Air neighborhood, said Scott Harper, a friend and fellow composer. A veteran writer of popular songs such as There's a Faraway Look in Your Eye and Pretty Kitty Blue Eyes, Mizzy launched his TV career in 1960 when he was asked to compose music for the dramatic anthology series ``Moment of Fear.'' Then came an offbeat assignment: The Addams Family, the 1964-66 TV series based on Charles Addams' macabre magazine cartoons and starring John Astin as Gomez Addams and Carolyn Jones as his wife, Morticia. For his theme song, Mizzy played a harpsichord, which gives the theme its unique flavor. And because Filmways refused to pay for singers, Mizzy sang it himself and overdubbed it three times. The song, memorably punctuated by finger-snapping, begins with: ``They're creepy and they're kooky, mysterious and spooky, they're altogether ooky: the Addams family.'' In the 1996 book TV's Biggest Hits: The Story of Television Themes >From `Dragnet' to `Friends,' '' author Jon Burlingame writes that Mizzy's ``musical conception was so specific that he became deeply involved with the filming of the main-title sequence, which involved all seven actors snapping their fingers in carefully timed rhythm to Mizzy's music.'' For Mizzy, who owned the publishing rights to The Addams Family theme, it was an easy payday. ``I sat down; I went `buh-buh-buh-bump (snap snap), buh-buh-buh- bump,'' he recalled in a 2008 interview on CBS' ``Sunday Morning'' show. ``That's why I'm living in Bel-Air: Two finger snaps, and you live in Bel-Air.'' The season after The Addams Family debuted, Mizzy composed the title song for Green Acres, the 1965-71 rural comedy starring Eddie Albert and Eva Gabor. For Green Acres, Burlingame observed in his book, Mizzy ``again conceived the title song as intertwined with the visuals'' of the show's opening title sequence and telling the story of wealthy Oliver and Lisa Douglas moving from New York City to a farm in the country. Burlingame on Monday described the themes for The Addams Family and Green Acres as ``two of the best-remembered sit-com themes of all time.'' --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "World News Now Discussion List" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/wnndl?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
