Search - Howdy Doody, The Lone Ranger, The Honeymooners :: 25th Anniversary Edition - TV Classic Themes

TV sound is TV sound

Luc Lepage | Montreal, Quebec Canada | 10/27/2001

(3 out of 5 stars)

"If you buy this for the main purpose of having your favorite ORIGINAL tv themes in you cd collection, then it's really what you will get. However, the buyer must know that all the tracks are in MONO only, and the overall sound is very compressed like were the 45 rpm in the 50's and 60's.. Remember that this double cd came from an LP and I think they only transfered to cd the original vinyl (minus the surface noise and adding some promotions and presentations from the stars of the programs). Again, all this makes it a very nostalgic atmosphere because it sounds like if you're listening to your old tv set in mono with the very heavy compressed sound we were used to back then. Let say that I'm a little bit disapointed of the sound quality. My assumption is that they lifted the tracks directly from the tv reels instead of going back to the vaults and get the original masters. It would have improved the sound a lot and probably get us more stereo version on disc two. I had hoped to find my favorite Man From U.N.C.L.E.'s theme with the flute and bongos in great stereo. Well, just forget about it. They used the fourth year's theme with the dominant organ. Some of the themes can be found in much better sound on other tv themes cds. I recommend for that matter Cult Fiction where they took care of the quality of the sources. As an example, you can find in that cd a marvelous version of Hawaii 5-0 by the Ventures wich is much more enjoyable to listen than the one we find in this actual double cd. I know that it was probably impossible to find better audio sources for certain themes, especially from the 50's . So TV sound remains TV sound and you cannot expect much more than that. And trying to be fair I'd say that , considering the limitations, probably nobody could do do better than that In one word, don't by this for the sound quality, it's very poor. If you buy it, it sould be just because you want to get the nostalgic feeling of listening to your old favorite tv themes like you used to hear to them from your tv set back in the 50's or 60's depending on you age. It would have been marvelous if the producers would or could have had access to the masters. Again, who knows they probably tried... If you want to make a comparison: consider the great job that was done on the Ultra-Lounge Volume 7 cd titled : The Crime Scenes or Volume 13 titled TV Town. Maybe thoses versions are not the original tv soundtracks, but soundwise, they are in much better shape and all in glorious stereo. This actual double cd sounds like it was made from a bad cassette tape as where the Ultra-Lounges are coming from the first generation masters from Capitol Records. That's why my conclusion is that apart from the pure nostalgic point of view, this double cd is not worth the buy. Back then, nobody tought that those tv themes would have meant so much for babyboomers. Oh, one last thing, I don't work for Ultra-lounge, I just enjoyed them all so much. Too bad they stop the series."

Added info

Luc Lepage | 12/02/2001

(2 out of 5 stars)

"The theme from The Rebel is not even the Johnny Cash song even though it says so. Its the generic instumental which was tacked onto the opening credits of the show when it was re-syndicated in the 80s and they had a problem clearing the rights to the song."