A very interesting email from Dreamtime listener, Richard...
"So I was at Amoeba Records in Hollywood last Sunday and was thumbing through the Porter Wagoner section to see if they had the new Bear Family 3 CD set of his concept albums. Guy next to me sees what I'm doing and asks if I'm looking for the Bear Family set too.
I turn to tell him I am and its Eddie G (I recognized him from the DVD with the Ricky Jay Plays Poker set). I ask him if he's Eddie G, tell him how I know him and we start talking. Very nice guy.
He introduces me to his wife, Coco [Shinomiya]. He asks me what I'm buying today (Carlene Carter and Jim Lauderdale) and shows me his stash for the day (Carlene Carter, some blues comps, some Tex-Mex, etc) .
Also tells me that he just spoke to Elvis Costello yesterday. Carlene opened for E.C. at a show in Nashville and put on, according to Elvis, a dynamite set. I tell him how much I like the Dylan show. He tells me that he's very proud of that show and that they're working now on shows for the fall. We didn't get into specifics but he says he thinks the third season will be the best yet..."
A little research indicated that Coco, who gets name-checked on the closing credits of TTRH, is indeed married to Eddie G. A "Coco Grimes Gorodetsky" wife to an "Eddie Gorodetsky" was a character in an episode of Six Feet Under, written by Scott Buck, who's a good friend of Eddie G.
So, it also does look we're waiting till the Fall for the next round of Theme Time. Scribble, scribble, scribble, please, Mr. G.
"Why does the eye see a thing more clearly in dreams than the imagination when awake?" Leonardo da Vinci - Def Inventor
This is the Dreamtime podcast - occasional commentary on Bob Dylan's Theme Time Radio Hour weekly show.
Episode 9 - The Outro
My last podcast was on Theme Time's intro, specifically "the Voice," who does the "Night time in the Big City," lead-in. I'll be coming back to that, ah, "theme," if you will in another podcast, but this week we're looking at the closing credits - the outro of "Theme Time" as read by your announcer, Pierre Mancini.
[Theme Time outro]
Part 1 - Coco has a hot rod
[From Theme Time - "Cars"]
Coco Shinomiya gets a special thanks each week on Theme Time, I suspect because Coco probably had a hand in the design of the Theme Time logo. A Los-Angeles based freelance art director and graphic designer, Coco is also sometimes known as Monster X, usually when she's pulling double duty on the same project.
Barnes & Noble, which is much better at listing full product information than Amazon, has over 100 titles associated with Coco's name; including, in no particular order, albums by Allen Ginsberg, Warren Zevon, Julie London, Connie Francis, and Buck Owens. She's been nominated twice for Grammies for album packaging. As part of Dylan's posse, Coco did the cover design for Chronicles… and she has a book herself. Coco edited Hot Rods & Custom Cars: a book on hot rod customizing from one of my favorite publishers, Taschen Books.
She shares her home with a guinea pig named Roscoe and two hot rods -- a 32 Ford Tudor Sedan and a 27 T Roadster project… and she enjoys going fast.*
*Photos of Coco with friends and of her car courtesy of Tricia J.
[Dharma & Greg theme]
Part 2: The Dharma and Greg Connection
Eddie Gorodetsky, Debbie Sweeney and Diane Lapson are also named each week on Theme Time's credits. Like Coco, both Sweeney and Lapson are regular members of Dylan's crew: Sweeney and Lapson helped secure music clearances and were named as production managers on No Direction Home. Sweeney also gets a "special thanks" in the credits of the documentary about the making of Masked and Anonymous, Masked and Anonymous Exposed.
Gorodetsky, who's credited as Theme Time's producer, has an interesting bio in the International Movie database. Among his other credits, he's listed as a writer for the "Dharma and Greg" TV series, as well as both producer and supervising producer. In fact, an AP story from 1999 credits Gorodetsky with engineering Dylan's appearance on "Dharma and Greg." Gorodetsky also appeared in Masked and Anonymous, as well as The Aristocrats.
Interestingly, Gorodetsky was also a writer on the Batman animated TV series, a neo-noirish cartoon that could have coined the tag-line of Night time in the Big City. It makes you wonder whether he's the writer behind Theme Time's opening frame.
Part 3: The indisputable leader of the gang
[Fred bomp-bomps]
Oh, excuse me. Forgot you were still there. I was just thinking about the music we hear in the background each week as Pierre recites the credits. As more than one person has noted, it bears a striking resemblance to the theme music from a 1960s cartoon…
[Top Cat theme]
Top Cat The most effec-tu-al Top Cat Who's intellectual close friends get to call him T. C. Providing it's with dignity Top Cat The indisputable leader of the gang He's the boss He's the VIP He's a championship He's the most tip top - Top Cat
Yes he's the chief He's the king, but above everything He's the most tip top - Top Cat!
Premiering in 19 and 61, "Top Cat," like its predecessor, "The Flintstones," was based on an earlier sit-com. For "The Flintstones," that was "The Honeymooners," of course, and for "Top Cat," the Phil Silvers' vehicle, "You'll Never Get Rich," also known at various times as "Sgt. Bilko" and "The Phil Silvers' Show."
In fact, the actor who did Top Cat's voice modeled it on Silver's, and the late Maurice Gosfield, who played the sweet Private Duane Doberman on "The Phil Silvers Show" also provided the voice for Benny the Ball in "Top Cat." "Top Cat" was known as "Boss Cat" in the United Kingdom due to a trademark conflict, as there was a brand of cat food with the Top Cat name sold in Great Britain.
Hanna-Barbera's main musical director, Hoyt Curtin, composed the music for "Top Cat," as well as many other popular cartoon theme songs, including those from "The Flintstones," "The Jetsons," and "Jonny Quest."
"Hoyt was the king of jingle-making," says Jean MacCurdy, president of Warner Bros. Animation (now Hanna-Barbera's parent company). "His strong suit was coming up with the themes that almost anyone on the street could sing at the drop of a hat. He was really quite remarkable."
This has been Fred Bals with the Dreamtime podcast - occasional commentary on Bob Dylan's Theme Time Radio Hour weekly show.
Dreamtime is not associated with Studio B, the Abernathy Building, or Sampson's Diner, but I keep looking. Maybe in my dreams.
[Close]
Do you think Dylan's close friends get to call him B.D.?
Every Amazon purchase that starts here helps to support Dreamtime.
Dreamtime is supported through listener donations. All your Amazon purchases starting through Dreamtime provides us with a small commission, at no extra cost to you.
