This is the 50th consecutive post with a title that begins with a “W.” And today is Thanksgiving Day in the USA (Happy Thanksgiving!). So although I am at work, it is a very stress-free environment because most of the people I deal with are observing that holiday. So this is going to be a pontification-free post, and will deal strictly with the W title.
Remember Hawaii Five-O? It was one of the few TV shows that my mother would actually make a point of coming downstairs into the basement rec room to watch. I think she was crushing on Jack Lord. I also enjoyed the show. I just Wikipedia-ed it and was surprised to see that it ran 12 seasons. That’s more than M*A*S*H! I betcha that the division line between people who know the significance of the phrase, “Book ‘im, Danno” and those who don’t would be about the same as those who remember dialling a phone number, or turning the dial on a TV. But, oddly enough, I betcha that even today’s teenagers would recognize the theme music from the show. But would they know the source? Hmmm.
This post’s title also alludes to another long-running TV series, W5. For those of you outside Canada, it is a newsmagazine show like 60 Minutes, that airs on the CTV network here. It’s still on, although I haven’t seen it for years. But when I was young, and watching the TV news was about the most boring thing I could imagine, its story-telling style actually engaged me. I think that the idea of making the news more entertaining and compelling than when it’s simply spoken from a talking head, was a brilliant marketing decision.
Just thinking about that last thing, I wonder if it’s good or bad. When you sensationalize and package “news” to make it more attractive and palatable for young boys, perhaps you’re heading down the slippery slope that ends at National Enquirer or Entertainment Tonight. (Wow – there’s a theme of long-running TV series developing here. As an aside, when I first saw Entertainment Tonight, I was amazed at how much of its time was spent referring to itself. I actually used a stopwatch to time the amount of actual content that was being presented, vs. self-promotion of what was coming up later in the show, or later in the week. Out of the 22 minutes (commercials excluded), less than 10 were “fresh.”)
Anyway, all of this nonsense is in honour of the number that appears below.
50
brooXmark - Marketing Consultancy by Stephen Brooks 
November 27, 2008 at 8:37 pm
Ok smarty-pants, what rock band wrote the song that was used as the theme song* for W-5 for the early years? Bonus points for the name of the song, and any of the lyrics.
No Googling!
Hint 1: I don’t believe it was written specifically for the show.
Hint 2: They haven’t had a hit or been relevant in over 20 years
Hint 3: I don’t think any off the lyrics were in the main opening theme but may have been in the closing theme version.
November 27, 2008 at 10:44 pm
There was a TV new show that used Genesis’s “Turn It On Again” as theme music, but I don’t think it was W5.
Of TV news-ish shows, I always liked CTV’s “Live It Up!“, which was a weird combination of consumer advocacy and humour that no one seems to have duplicated to this day.
November 28, 2008 at 9:58 am
Hah! No googling required. It was Supertramp. I can’t remember the song’s title, and I don’t remember what album it was off, but it wasn’t “Breakfast in America” or “Crime of the Century” (both of which I still have). And I can’t remember the lyrics, except I believe it starts with “History recalls…” and there is a part where they say, “Can you hear what I’m saying?”
I remember this so vividly because that was part of what attracted the young man in me to the show – that they used ROCK MUSIC as their theme.
OK, now I’ve googled, and here is the song: it’s called “Fool’s Overture” and I was right about all my previous comments:
The part that was the theme music for W5 starts at about the 3:20 mark. It was on the “Even in the Quietest Moments” album, which also produced the hit “Give a Little Bit.”
November 28, 2008 at 10:34 am
Oh, and I remember Live it Up dimly – I recall one segment where the faceless “Watchdog” character opened several different brands of pork and beans cans to see which had the most pork.
November 28, 2008 at 12:51 pm
Fair enough. Good work. It was that was the theme music that attracted me to the show as well.
I always found Venture and Marketplace to be more interesting though.
January 19, 2009 at 12:23 pm
Hi,
Just to add to your fun … I hope! The W5 theme song was Fool’s Overture but was changed a bit. Do you recall. The tune was whistled by…
Roger Whittaker. I found this thread as I was trying to find the Roger Whittaker version of that song. Mom and Dad loved Roger Whittaker, my older brother loved Supertramp!
Great memories!
January 4, 2010 at 6:04 am
I have been trying to find out the Name of the song or the band or anything for the tv show Live It Up!. But I cant find a thing. Its becoming an obsesion with me now. I would love to see the shows again but if I could just hear the song ONE MORE time I would die happy. All I have found is some sites with a little info about who did the show. It was CTV but thats it realy. Can anyone help with info?