Harry Hill to present Stars in their Eyes

My response to that would be that if it were based on the old theme, wouldn't the original composer need crediting? "Reproduction" suggests to me that it could be inspired by the original, or changed just enough to dodge potential royalty issues.

Reproduction of the "original theme"? I have to call bull**** on that. The theme tune currently used on All Star Family Fortunes sounds absolutely nothing at all like the Jack Parnell / Dave Lindup (the real original) theme from the early 80's


(Shouldn't all this off-topic talk of Family Fortunes theme tunes be split from the Stars In Their Eyes thread?)

There was never a specific credit for the theme tune in the Les Dennis version. The credit for Mike Alexander was always given as "Musical Director". A curious credit for a gameshow theme tune. Would be interested to know the story behind that. Maybe he was on the books at Central/Carlton and therefore he was credited as a staffer rather than a composer of the theme tune. I really don't know.

The credit for the current version is "Theme Tune Arranged By" which blatantly acknowledges it is a new arrangement of the same theme.

And besides nit picking about credits, I still can't quite believe that people can't hear the Les Dennis theme in it. To me, it's clearly a more up-tempo, modern arrangement of the most famous Family Fortunes theme.

I spoke with two of the THREE people we were involved in the Les dennis theme of Family fortunes. Trevor Oerton, Mike Alexander and Colin Campbell.

Alas Trevor died many years ago, Colin is a conductor by trade, he did alot of work for BBC, including Pebble mill at one, and is very nice chap. Mike is as stated a Musical Director. There is no story behide this, mainly because thats his job, he has done many things including BBC shows, theatre show, adverts etc around the time IE 1987 he come along he also got the gig for "Gas street"

All three work together over the years mainly in a company I cant remember. All three helped to wrote and bring the piece to life.

Alas nether person has a copy but would LOVE to get a copy, so would I

Oh my word, I don't see or hear rather how you can't tell that the current theme has bits of the 90's/80's theme. Next you will all be saying the ITV News theme sounds nothing like the old News at Ten Theme.

The word tone deaf comes to mind

I've finally realised why I couldn't see the similarity.

I was comparing what I considered to be the signature - and favourite - part of the tune, which is undeniably different - the mid-section.

After playing the theme tune over and over in my head, I'd realised that the introduction and the conclusion are the parts that match (which is immediately obvious). If I'd thought about that in the first place, I'd have realised the similarity straight away.

In the cases of Fifteen-to-One and Catchphrase, the signature parts of the melodies were kept; for those who see the Family Fortunes theme as I do, the signature part was dropped.

That also applies to the ITV News theme - the signature part has prevailed through the decades.

Even the signature is partially present. They've taken the previous tune, and then cut the down the amount of notes that make up the melody, so whereas it would have had around 10 notes, it has about 7.

Then as they've taken all of the old school charm out of the melody, there's no where to go with it so they loop it a few times while Vernon prances around a green screen, before reaching the end, which as generally agreed, matches up with the previous version (although it also has the hell looped out of it)

This thread needs to be split. All this talk about the many variations of the Family Fortunes theme tunes has gone so far from the original topic of the return of Stars In Their Eyes since last Friday, it should be split away into its own thread.

Moderators ... over to you!

Shall we throw in an unused Catchphrase theme for good measure?

Seriously, to bring it back on topic...

Do you really feel this is a refreshing change to anything that's on TV nowadays?

Because this sort of over the top build up is basically what all of light entertainment has become in my eyes!

I think SITE's hype and build up etc is a lot more dignified than what The X Factor is. There was a Strictly sort of class to it. The fact The X Factor has to literally thrust every single word at you with Peter Dickson's voice shouting it is just stupid.