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Vic Mizzy wrote the “The Addams Family’’ theme song. (Micah Smith/ AP/ File 2004) |
V. Mizzy; composed TV's famous 'buh-buh-buh-bump (snap snap)'
LOS ANGELES - 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,’’ died of heart failure Oct. 17 at his home in the Bel-Air section of Los Angeles. He was 93.
A veteran writer of popular songs such as “There’s a Faraway Look in Your Eye’’ and “Pretty Kitty Blue Eyes,’’ Mr. Mizzy launched his television career in 1960 when he was asked to compose music for the dramatic anthology series “Moment of Fear.’’
He quickly moved on to score episodes of “Shirley Temple’s Storybook’’ and “The Richard Boone Show’’ and to write the themes for “Klondike’’ and the Dennis Weaver series “Kentucky Jones.’’
Then came an offbeat assignment: “The Addams Family,’’ the 1964 to 1966 TV series based on Charles Addams’s macabre magazine cartoons and starring John Astin as Gomez Addams and Carolyn Jones as his wife, Morticia.
For his theme song, Mr. Mizzy played a harpsichord, which gives the theme its unique flavor. And because Filmways refused to pay for singers, Mr. 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,’ ’’ Jon Burlingame writes that Mr. 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 the composer, 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’s “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, he composed the title song for “Green Acres,’’ the 1965 to 1971 rural comedy starring Eddie Albert and Eva Gabor.
For “Green Acres,’’ Mr. 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, Burlingame observed in his book.
Mr. Mizzy’s many television credits include writing the themes for Phyllis Diller’s 1966-67 sitcom “The Pruitts of Southampton,’’ and “The Don Rickles Show’’ (1968-69).
Among his movie credits as a composer are the Don Knotts comedies “The Ghost and Mr. Chicken,’’ “The Reluctant Astronaut,’’ “The Shakiest Gun in the West,’’ “The Love God?’’ and “How to Frame a Figg.’’
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