Customer Reviews

Vic Mizzy: Suites & Themes

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This wonderful collection, contains most of Vic Mizzy's most popular and recognized compositions. Mizzy worked predominantly on comedies, both in film and on television. His most familiar tunes are undoubtedly the themes for The Addams Family, and Green Acres. After them, his most notable works are probably from the many Don Knotts feature films that he provided music for. These included Knotts' classics, The Ghost and Mr. Chicken (1966), The Reluctant Astronaut (1967), How To Frame a Figg (1971), The Love God? (1969), and The Shakiest Gun in the West (1968). Mizzy was the perfect choice to provide music that matched the comic personality the hilarious Mr. Knotts.

Mizzy was a master at creating music with a light and happy mood. He often used percussion instruments like the xylophone, and chimes to accent and add an emphasis. He was also adept at creating a spooky mood, such as for The Addams Family series, and The Ghost and Mr. Chicken, where the creepy tune, The Haunted Organ raised the hairs on many a youngsters' neck. He also worked on several of William Castle's films. The Spirit is Willing (1967) is another fright piece, tinged with a spat of humor. The 13th Gate (1966), and The Night Walker (1964), is Mizzy doing fright with a more serious tone.

Also notable in this collection, is Don't Make Waves (1967), which has that cool swinging 60's feel of pure freedom, reminiscent of Nelson Riddle's Route 66. It will sweep you away, if you are in the mood. The Busy Body (1967) is an energetic, all out romp, full of mirth. The Love God? is more up tempo Mizzy. The Caper of the Golden Bulls (1967) is light, and bouncy, with a Latin flavor, from the film set in Pamplona, Spain.

The original themes for both The Addams Family and Green Acres are included, complete with the actual vocals by Eddie Albert and Eva Gabor. Add in over a dozen short tracks from various television programs, and the running time of this CD is over 77 minutes.

This is a first class collection that pays a fitting tribute to Mr. Mizzy. Prepared with care and appreciation, it comes with a 24 page booklet that includes his biography, photos, reproductions of movie posters from the films he scored, and extensive notes covering the background of much of the music. This is simply a delightful collection that should be highly appreciated by any fan of Vic Mizzy's music.

This collection will make you hum along, snap your fingers and have a great musical journey. I love several cuts from this collection, including THE GHOST AND MR CHICKEN, THE CAPER OF THE GOLDEN BULLS, THE ADDAMS FAMILY and many more you will recognize.

This is a wonderful overview of Vic Mizzy's talent over the years of scoring for TV and Film. Mizzy had an incredible groove for being able to read the visual themes and compose the perfect scores to accomodate for the finished product. Most of his scording was done for comedys such as The Addams Family TV series, Green Acres and many great Don Knotts films including, The Ghost and Mr. Chicken, The Reluctant Astronout, Caper of The Golden Bulls, The Perils of Pauline, The Shakiest Gun In The West, The Love God, The Busy Body, How To Frame a Figg and many others. There are also some serious thrillers included such as The Night Walker and The Spirit Is Willing. You will detect a heavier more serious tone in these pieces. There are some bonus tracks thrown in to of lesser known but still fantastic works including the theme from The Don Rickles Show. It comes with a very informative 24 page booklet loaded with info. on the composer and his techniques used in composing for TV themes and Films. This is a great listen for fans of TV and Film scores and highly recommended. If you don't already have this in your music library, check it out.

John W. Shearer

This wonderful collection, contains most of Vic Mizzy's most popular and recognized compositions. Mizzy worked predominantly on comedies, both in film and on television. His most familiar tunes are probably the themes for The Addams Family, and Green Acres. After those classics from TV, his most notable works are probably from the many Don Knotts feature films that he provided music for. These included Knotts' classics, The Ghost and Mr. Chicken (1966), The Reluctant Astronaut (1967), How To Frame a Figg (1971), The Love God? (1969), and The Shakiest Gun in the West (1968). Mizzy was the ideal choice to provide music that matched the comic personality the hilarious Mr. Knotts.

Mizzy was a master at creating music with a light and happy mood. He often used percussion instruments like the xylophone, and chimes to accent and add an emphasis. He was also adept at creating a spooky mood, such as for The Addams Family series, and The Ghost and Mr. Chicken, where the creepy tune, The Haunted Organ raised the hairs on many a youngsters' neck. He also worked on several of William Castle's films. The Spirit is Willing (1967) is another fright piece, tinged with a spat of humor. The 13th Gate (1966), and The Night Walker (1964), is Mizzy doing fright, with a more serious tone.

Also notable in this collection, is Don't Make Waves (1967), which has that cool swinging 60's vibe of pure freedom, reminiscent of Nelson Riddle's Route 66. It will sweep you away, if you are in the mood. The Busy Body (1967) is an energetic, all out romp, full of mirth. The Love God? is more up tempo Mizzy. The Caper of the Golden Bulls (1967) is light, and bouncy, with a Latin flavor, from the film set in Pamplona, Spain.

The original themes for both The Addams Family and Green Acres are included, complete with the actual vocals by Eddie Albert and Eva Gabor. Add in over a dozen short tracks from various television programs, and the running time of this CD is over 77 minutes.

This is a first class collection that pays a fitting tribute to the late composer. Prepared with care and appreciation, it comes with an extensive 24 page booklet that includes his biography, photos, reproductions of movie posters from the films he scored, and extensive notes covering the background of much of the music. This is simply a delightful collection that should be highly appreciated by any fan of Vic Mizzy's music. Hopefully it will soon become available again.

Beautiful CD. Great tunes and the booklet is chock full of great info. I was very sad the day that Vic died.

The only problem I have approaching a movie or tv show scored by Vic Mizzy is the almost certain knowledge that his score will be the best thing about it. One glance at the titles on this CD bears this out; there are mighty few of these shows that would make it to any but the most charitable "10 Best" or even "1000 Best" list. Some of these titles, like "The Perils of Pauline," haven't weathered the test of time well; others, like "Did You Hear the One about the Traveling Saleslady?" were born bad.

But Vic Mizzy's music is delightful. These creative, bouncy scores, influenced by everything from the classics to mood music from the silent film era to lounge music from the Exotica craze, frequently evoke the smiles and thrills that the movies themselves sometimes fall short of. Several of these scores, such as "The Ghost and Mr. Chicken" and "The Addams Family" have their own albums, and they're worth finding. This collection is something of a candybox sampler, but it serves-up the very best.

As is usual with Percepto's CDs, there's a doctoral thesis-sized booklet of liner notes with wonderful illustrations to boot. This album is nearly 80 minutes of pure listening pleasure. It's no wonder that few people can recollect all the character names or even a full episode of "The Addams Family" or "Green Acres," but practically everybody can hum (and snap fingers to) the theme music.

Vic Mizzy's music helped make some of my favorite movies into true classics. Without his musical style, the movies that I grew up with, and still love to this day would never be the same! A perfect example of this is the movie "The Ghost and Mr. Chicken" - as well as other movies starring Don Knotts. Vic Mizzy's music "set the tone" for these movies and really made them great!

This is a wonderful collection, and if you liked the movies or TV shows that used Vic Mizzy's music for the soundtracks, you will LOVE this CD!