TIME: "Top 10 Unforgettable TV Sounds"

[JamesG]

Top 10 Unforgettable TV Sounds
Monday - Sept. 14, 2010


The crime drama "Law & Order" celebrates its 20th anniversary this week. Besides spawning multiple spin-offs, it is also known for its immediately recognizable "doink doink."

TIME takes a look at other unmistakable television sounds:







1. "Law & Order's" 'Doink Doink'







In the world of television crime shows, viewers recognize this long-running classic through two separate yet equally important features.

The gritty theme song that introduces the program and the "doink doink" that heralds new scenes. This is that sound effect's story.





For 20 years, we've found a strange comfort in watching "Law & Order's" detectives and prosecutors fight crime in New York City. The drama just wouldn't be the same without the "doink doink," that one-of-a-kind auditory cue that plays over a black screen as the location and date of the next scene is displayed in white text.

Perhaps you know it as the "chung chung." Or the "dong dong." Or the "thunk thunk." But whatever you call it — and whether it brings to mind a jail cell shutting or a gavel pounding or something else entirely — you know what we're talking about.




According to IMDB, the effect was "created by combining close to a dozen sounds, including that of a group of monks stamping on a floor."











2. "The Twilight Zone" Theme







In the second season of CBS's original "The Twilight Zone" series, CBS music director Lud Gluskin was tasked with finding the show its own special sound, and thus the iconic theme tune was born.

Simplistic, yet hair-raising, the music was derived from two short cues written by French avant-garde composer Marius Constant, who had originally created the music as part of a background score that, until Gluskin unearthed it, lived sleepily in CBS's musical archive.

Gluskin took snippets of two pieces, "Entrange 3" (Strange No. 3) and "Milieu 2" (Middle No. 2), to form the dramatic guitar plinks and orchestral bursts that warn us of a reality that comes with a twist.











3. "Jeopardy's" 'Think!' Music







This 30-second tune, which plays while "Jeopardy" contestants mull their questions to an answer, manages to build pressure without being overtly ominous.

It is also extremely catchy, and has been known to be used as a weapon against people trying to think of an answer under non-quiz-show circumstances.











4. The Road Runner's 'Beep Beep'







The talented creators behind the Warner Bros.' "Looney Tunes" cartoons literally invented new ways to give sound to their characters.

But perhaps the most famous is the Road Runner's "Beep Beep."

(Note: There are ongoing debates online over whether the Road Runner actually says "Meep" or "Beep." For the record, he was known as Beep Beep the Road Runner in the original comic.)




Paul Julian was the man behind the bird, and he tried to imitate a car horn as the Road Runner's calling card (another point for "Beep").

In the Road Runner's constant quest to escape the pesky Wile E. Coyote, he beeps (or meeps) around the desert and to this day remains on the loose.











5. The "60 Minutes" Stopwatch







For many growing up in America, any given Sunday was marked by the tick-ticking of the "60 Minutes" stopwatch.

The show, started in 1968, is a journalism dinosaur: a television newsmagazine that persists with in-depth investigations and stern-faced reporting.



It has survived and prospered largely because of its immense pedigree — having served as the launchpad for news icons like Dan Rather, Mike Wallace and Diane Sawyer — and its intrepid style, pioneering, among other TV tactics, the uncomfortably close interview closeup.

"60 Minutes" takes its time, asks hard questions of those at the top and invariably ends with that venerable curmudgeon, Andy Rooney, a journalistic anachronism if there ever was one.

All the while, the stopwatch, which has changed appearance over the decades, keeps on ticking.











6. The "Seinfeld" Theme







Close talkers. Low talkers. High talkers. Soup nazis. Shrinkage. Double dipping. Man hands. Festivus.

"Seinfeld" coined a seemingly limitless number of concepts and catchphrases during its nine-year run on NBC, and yet the most easily recognizable part of the show is actually the music.

The sound was created by Jonathan Wolff with a bass synthesizer occasionally accompanied by pops and clicks.











7. Charlie Brown's Adult Voices







Nothing seals the concept of seeing the world entirely through the eyes of children (and a certain man's best friend) like completely obscuring adult voices.

In Charles Schulz's beloved long-running comic, grownups were neither seen nor heard. Instead the unseen parents and teachers were represented with only a series of wah wahs — the blurred droning of lecturing adults.




The iconic rhetoric made its on-screen debut in the 1960s when the TV specials of Schulz's Peanuts made their first appearances.

It was composer Vince Guaraldi (who wrote most of the recognized Peanuts music) who first suggested the use of a trombone to embody the unintelligible speak, which effortlessly reveals the communication gap between children and adults — all without using a single word.











8. "Bewitched's" Nose Tinkle







"Bewitched's" Samantha Stephens had everything: a nice house, an adoring husband and the ability to make things disappear (or reappear) with just a twitch of her nose.

Samantha's nose wiggles were always accompanied by a doodle-oodle-ooo tinkling sound reportedly made by a xylophone.



So how did actress Elizabeth Montgomery perfect that twitch, anyway?

Word on the street has it that when she wrinkled her nose, she was actually just moving her lip.











9. Steve Urkel's Laugh







It starts out high, in short, piercing bursts. And it lingers, ever so briefly, until it dives, transforming from a lilting he-he-he to a full-on pig snort.

The Steve Urkel laugh — the brilliance of which rests in the fact that it's all performed in the nose — is as unmistakable as suspender-wearing, high-waisted Urkel himself.



"Family Matters", a staple of ABC's TGIF Friday-night lineup, and the 1990s themselves wouldn't have been the same without him. "Did I do that?" Urkel would have said.

Yes, Steve, you did.











10. Tim 'the Tool Man' Taylor's Grunt







From the man who brought the world the man's kitchen, the man's bedroom and the man's bathroom on the fictional cable home show Tool Time, comes the manliest of all nonverbal expressions: the grunt.

On "Home Improvement", the accident-prone Tim "the Tool Man" Taylor (Tim Allen) gave everything from cars to simple household appliances "more power" and created an entire language of grunts.



It's a simple, yet hearty expression that can mean almost anything.

There's the "I am man, hear me roar" growl, which bears striking similarity to the "I am so manly I can't even believe it" roar.

Then there's the "Oh-ho-ho-ho, look who's right for once" woof and, of course, the grunt of utter confusion "Uh-huuuh?" that book-ended the show's theme song.


http://www.time.com/time/specials/pa...018850,00.html

[catlover79]

I knew the chung chung would be at the top of the list. Love them all except for Steve Urkel's laugh - way too annoying.

[spunkygirl]

Road Runner sounds like at times he's saying "meep meep"

[catlover79]

Originally Posted by Dragonflies

Road Runner sounds like at times he's saying "meep meep"

That's what it always sounded like to me!!

[Retro4Life]

There is no way the Sleestaks' "hisssss" did not make this list.

[Kristen]

The first thing that popped into my head when I read the thread title was the L&O noise. I just can't imagine the show without it. The other sounds on the list were unforgettable, too, but I don't think anything tops L&O.

[Marvo301]

I'm surprised the MTM Kitten meowing isn't on this list! On the other hand I'm happy to finally find out how they did the sound of the adult "voices" on Peanuts specials. I would have never guessed it was trombones!!

[catlover79]

Originally Posted by JamesG

According to IMDB, the effect was "created by combining close to a dozen sounds, including that of a group of monks stamping on a floor."

If that's true and not an urban legend, I wonder why monks were stamping on a floor.

[Zoneboy]

Originally Posted by catlover79

If that's true and not an urban legend, I wonder why monks were stamping on a floor.

We all know how unreliable IMDb can be. The L&O sound is certainly recognizable but it's only #1 in this list because of it's 20th anniversary. Two others that should be on there are The Andy Griffith Show whistle and the MARK VII hammer.

[JamesG]

Originally Posted by catlover79

If that's true and not an urban legend, I wonder why monks were stamping on a floor.

Japanese monk kabuki ritual.

"L&O" composer Mike Post explained it in an old Entertainment Weekly interview from 1993:



''I think of it as the stylized sound of a jail cell locking. I wanted to add something that's very distinctive but not a literal sound. What I tried to do was jar a little bit.''

Instead of the electric piano, guitar, and clarinet for which he scored the opening theme, Post synthesized his chung CHUNG electronically, combining six or seven different sounds to get the right dead-bolt effect.


One of the eeriest adds: the sound of 500 Japanese men stamping their feet on a wooden floor. ''It was a sort of monstrous Kabuki event,'' he says. ''Probably one of those large dance classes they hold. They did this whole big stamp. Somebody went out and sampled that.''

http://www.ew.com/ew/article/0,,305720,00.html

[catlover79]

^ Thanks!!