Wednesday, April 18, 2012

Recess Opening Theme vs. The Great Escape by Elmer Bernstein

I was listening to Pandora Radio when I accidentally selected "James Bond Radio." The first song that played was The Great Escape by Elmer Bernstein. I let it play for a few seconds and it sounded very familiar to me. It reminded me of the opening theme song from Recess, a cartoon I used to watch as a kid.

I compared both side by side and they sound very similar! So similar, in fact, that I think Recess "borrowed" the score from The Great Escape, altered it a bit (using different instruments and arrangement), and called it their own!

What do you think? Are they similar? Take a listen to both below:



4 comments:

  1. Love it! Considering the composer for Recess was about 10 when the movie came out, he likely wanted to embody the heros from this historic movie. I imagine he felt Recess was the great escape from the horrible wrath of the schoolday when he was a child and finally felt he had the perfect project to share it...even if it went over all the kids heads.

    Bravo Hannigan

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  2. I love your theory. Wish we could get an interview from the composer!

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  3. It's basically the exact same theme. I am very surprised there are virtually no references to this online..

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  4. Weren't there also a couple of kids that were always trying to dig a tunnel out, too?

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