MovieChat Forums > Laramie (1959) Discussion > Opening credit sequences.

Opening credit sequences.

posted 11 years ago by billycan
6 replies | jump to latest

I have just finished season 1 of Laramie on DVD and started Season 2. First thing I noticed was the change to the opening credits. The Season 2 sequence is familiar to me from back in the day when I used to watch it as a kid but I really prefer the season 1 opening sequence. I understand that Hoagy Carmichael had left but what they replaced it with is just cheap and nasty and why oh why would they change the theme music. It was perfect!!!

Who out there feels the same and who likes the newer sequence?

[–] djzilla 11 years ago

I prefer the original theme music to that beginning of the second season theme as well. The good news is...keep watching, it will be back. I wonder if people complained about the new theme when it first aired.

[–] billycan 11 years ago

Thanks for that. Good to know the original theme will be back. It is strange that it was replaced and even stranger that it did come back. Perhaps some studio exec really liked the original theme as well. I can't imagine that ordinary viewers complained. People were much more complacent back then. That is why the huge protests over the cancellation of "Star Trek" were so unprecedented at the time and caused such ripples in the industry.

[–] actionsub 9 years ago

It seems, according to some sources, that NBC was trying to totally retool "Laramie" in the second season due to mediocre ratings. They shipped off Hoagy (who apparently wasn't too upset about losing the role) and Bobby Crawford, turning "Laramie" into somewhat of a buddy Western.
This didn't seem to take, as it took away some of the factors that made "Laramie" unique. I agree that the change in theme music was another symptom, as the new music sounded like almost every other Western. Toward the end of the second season, they restored the original Cyril Mockridge theme with a new open with John Smith and Robert Fuller riding in from opposite sides of a mountain.
In the third season, they brought in Dennis Holmes as a young orphan, which showed Jess's softer side with kids again like he had with Crawford's character in the first season. Spring Byington came in as well as a sort of mother figure.

[–] billycan 9 years ago

That would explain it. Thanks for your input.

[–] jofus224 9 years ago

I've been watching for a couple of months now on Grit TV, and had a question.

During the opening credits (I've seen mostly seasons 3 and 4) the two are riding together, and then singly as the actors' names are shown. When they show John Smith it appears like his head has been superimposed over another, kind of an early photoshop. His head and face seem a little larger than they should be.

Anyone else notice this?

"Leave the gun, take the cannoli"

[–] TucsonBender 8 years ago

During the opening credits (I've seen mostly seasons 3 and 4) the two are riding together, and then singly as the actors' names are shown. When they show John Smith it appears like his head has been superimposed over another, kind of an early photoshop. His head and face seem a little larger than they should be.

Anyone else notice this?

I've noticed this too. It does seem like awkward visual editing when each is isolated for actor credit.