Lorenzo and Henrietta Music -- Home to Emily

 

First off, welcome to August 2024! In the course of making this weekly Reminiscings of Youth article, I came to realize how many television shows that I've seen and millions of others have seen that had been produced under the MTM Enterprises banner in the 1970s and 1980s. The production company had been founded in 1969 by the late great entertainer Mary Tyler Moore and her then-husband Grant Tinker to create the former's classic sitcom "The Mary Tyler Moore Show". The theme song "Love is All Around" by Sonny Curtis has already been featured here as a ROY tune along with Steve Carlisle's theme song for "WKRP in Cincinnati", another MTM production. There are many more theme songs of shows under Mary's banner that I can easily put up here on KKP since they are so memorable. But of course, I have to finally mention that the logo is none other than Mimsie the Cat who wasn't actually owned by Mary and Grant but by one of the staffers at MTM.

Now, actually I had originally decided to put up this particular theme song because the star of its show, comedian and actor Bob Newhart, had passed away last week at the age of 94 and I would have posted it then but I already had one other ROY song in the pipe. 

The strange thing is that though I had already known about Mary Tyler Moore because of her past famous role on "The Dick Van Dyke Show" as Laura Petrie and even became a great fan of "The Mary Tyler Moore Show", I knew nothing about Bob Newhart at the time. And to be honest, I don't remember having seen a single episode in its entirety (I did come across certain scenes in the reruns) from his own long-running MTM-produced series which ran from 1972 to 1978 (and it usually followed "Mary Tyler Moore"). I just remember that he played the calm but droll Dr. Bob Hartley the psychologist while the fetching Suzanne Pleshette had the role of his wife, Emily. It would be years before I found out in junior high school (via one of his comedy albums in the school library) that he had been a standup comedian with the button-down mind since the late 1950s with his famous series of telephone call routines.

The other thing and it is the biggest thing that I remember from "The Bob Newhart Show" is the theme song by Lorenzo and Henrietta Music; Lorenzo was even the co-creator of the sitcom itself. For a show revolving around a nice but unassuming character, "Home to Emily" was quite the epic musical accompaniment with the swinging jazzy brass as he did his commute home in Chicago from his office. But then, as he approached his apartment, the orchestral boil came down to a soothing simmer thanks to a flugelhorn (I think) as ol' Bob can now think about having a nice dinner and evening with his wife.

Later on, the opening credits opted to reverse the process and have the good doctor head over to work from home. Music's theme song then got a major disco-funk revamping which made me wonder how much cooler did Dr. Hartley get and did that translate into more clients?

Looks like a number of artists entertained the possibilities of "Home to Emily" such as composer and arranger Patrick Williams. The more, the merrier. And also, my condolences to Newhart's family, friends and fans including those who discovered him later on in life as Professor Proton on "The Big Bang Theory".

"The Bob Newhart Show" made its premiere on CBS on September 16th 1972. Well, I managed to find out what the Top 3 singles were on Oricon a couple of days later.

1. Rumiko Koyanagi -- Kyo no Niwaka Ame （京のにわか雨）

2. Takuro Yoshida -- Tabi no Yado （旅の宿）

3. Mari Amachi -- Niji wo Watatte（虹をわたって）

Wow! Couldn't quite believe that actor Raul Julia made a guest appearance on "The Bob Newhart Show".