August 6, 2009

Today's Tune: Themes From 'The Avengers' And 'Space: 1999'

Space: 1999 title image from Season 1.

Theme music from two great British television shows make the cut today. Both were used in shows involving English TV and film director and screenwriter Charles Crichton. Crichton worked on several successful films, including the 1951 movie 'The Lavender Hill Mob' (Directed) and 'A Fish Called Wanda' (Co-wrote and directed). We celebrate his birth date however with the theme music from the highly popular 1960s television programme The Avengers (Directed 5 episodes 1965-1968) and 1970s science fiction masterpiece Space: 1999 (Directed). It's somewhat ironic that Crichton died on September 14, 1999, while the first episode of Space: 1999 involves a disastrous accident that sends the Earth's Moon and the 311 inhabitants of Moonbase Alpha out of it's orbit on September 13, 1999.

Also born on the 6th of August were: 1911 - American actress of film, stage and radio Lucille Ball (My Favorite Husband, I Love Lucy, 'Your's, Mine And Ours'), 1917 - American film star Robert Mitchum ('The Story Of G.I. Joe', 'Heaven Knows, Mr. Allison', 'Cape Fear' )and in 1970 - Indian-American filmmaker and screenwriter M. Knight Shyamalan ('The Sixth Sense', 'Unbreakable', 'Signs').

Deaths on this date include English actor Sir Cedric Hardwicke ('The Hunchback Of Notre Dame', A Connecticut Yankee In King Arthur's Court , 'The Ten Commandments') in 1964, and American radio and television news reporter Harry Reasoner passed away in 1991.

Important history for August 6: 1945 - US dropped atomic bomb on Hiroshima, Japan, 1961 - Russian Cosmonaut Gherman Titov spent one whole day in Earth's orbit.



The Avengers Series 5 Theme (Laurie Johnson)



Space: 1999 Series 1 Theme (Barry Gray)

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