Stumbled across this great little website devoted to the sounds of master tapes from the world of television production music. Underscores, theme songs and outtakes galore.
Some of the highlights for me:
The Original Master of The Hockey Night in Canada Opening and End Theme
Stan Freberg Audio Promos for "The New CBS season"
Johnny Olson Game Show Audience Warm-ups
Music from The Flip Wilson Show
Various Rocky & Bullwinkle/Jay Ward Production Music
Three Different SCTV Theme Songs
Familiar Underscores of 1950s Television
Tons more - Something for Everyone here.
That's not actually the original masters of the Hockey Theme. They wanted to release them on CD some years ago but couldn't locate the masters, so they rounded up Guido Basso and as many other of the musicians from the original sessions as they could and had them re-record it using the original charts. They ended up selling it as a digital download on Itunes and elsewhere. TSN's new recording ended up not sounding much different, since I would guess they used the same charts.
Posted by: Geoff | June 20, 2010 at 01:24 AM
That's crazy that they couldn't locate the master. it's on a reel in Winnipeg. At least it was circa 1999.
Posted by: Listener Kliph | June 20, 2010 at 02:10 AM
The closing theme is way more Dragnetty than I ever remembered it...
Posted by: Pascal | June 20, 2010 at 01:09 PM
Looks like an interesting site, thanks!
Posted by: spaceboy | June 21, 2010 at 07:31 PM
great find - I'm digging how the Soul Train theme song evolved over the years http://www.tvmusicmuseum.com/documents/752.html
Posted by: bennett4senate | June 22, 2010 at 03:00 PM