[Deathwatch] Vic Mizzy, film and TV composer, 93

[Deathwatch Central <cdw@slick.org>]

Vic Mizzy dies at 93; film and TV composer wrote 'Addams Family' theme
song
He also composed the theme music for the 1965-71 rural comedy 'Green
Acres.'

By Dennis McLellan

October 20, 2009

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," has died. He was 93.

Mizzy died of heart failureSaturday at his home in Bel-Air, said Scott
Harper, a friend and fellow composer.

A veteran writer of popular songs such as "There's a Faraway Look in
Your Eye" and "Pretty Kitty Blue Eyes," Mizzy launched his TV 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 1964-66 TV
series based on Charles Addams' macabre magazine cartoons and starring
John Astin as Gomez Addams and Carolyn Jones as his wife, Morticia.

For his theme song, Mizzy played a harpsichord, which gives the theme
its unique flavor. And because the production company, Filmways,
refused to pay for singers, 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,' " author Jon Burlingame writes that
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 Mizzy, 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' "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" made its debut, Mizzy composed the
title song for ?Green Acres,? the 1965-71 rural comedy starring Eddie
Albert and Eva Gabor.

For "Green Acres," Burlingame observed in his book, Mizzy "again
conceived the title song as intertwined with the visuals" of the show's
title sequence and telling the story of wealthy Oliver and Lisa Douglas
moving from New York to a farm in the country.

Burlingame on Monday described the themes for "The Addams Family" and
"Green Acres" as "two of the best-remembered sitcom themes of all
time."

"Vic was an old-school songwriter who believed in melody and
hummability," Burlingame said. "He thought that people ought to be able
to easily remember a theme.

"Vic was one of the wittiest composers I ever met, and he had an
uncanny ability to incorporate his own personal sense of humor into his
music."

Mizzy's use of bass harmonica and fuzz guitar in the music of "Green
Acres," for example, "was somehow perfect for that show's setting, and
it only added to the humor of the situations," Burlingame said.

In the case of "The Addams Family," he said, "you've got the
harpsichord, which lends this antique, sort of macabre quality to the
theme. But then you add the lyrics, which make it funny. So you have
the perfect combination of macabre and amusing. It was just right for
that show's sensibility."

Mizzy's many TV credits include writing the themes for Phyllis Diller's
1966-67 sitcom "The Pruitts of Southampton" and "The Don Rickles Show"
(1968-69), for which Mizzy also conducted the orchestra.

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."

Born in Brooklyn on Jan. 9, 1916, Mizzy learned to play the piano as a
child. While he was a student at New York University, he and his friend
Irving Taylor began writing songs and sketches for variety shows.

They appeared on radio's "Major Bowes' Original Amateur Hour" and won
an amateur contest on the Fred Allen show. The team's first published
song was "Your Heart Rhymes with Mine."

Mizzy, who served four years in the Navy during World War II, had a
number of hits with Taylor, including "Three Little Sisters" and "Take
It Easy." Under a later partnership with Mann Curtis, Mizzy had hits
such as "My Dreams Are Getting Better All the Time," "The Whole World
Is Singing My Song" and "The Jones Boy."

Mizzy is survived by his daughter Lynn Mizzy Jonas; his brother Sol;
and two grandchildren.


Many thanks to Deathwatch Central for posting this obituary