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Nick Hewer quits Countdown

Anne Robinson announced as replacement - page 11 (December 2020)

This site closed in March 2021 and is now a read-only archive
SO
Soupnzi
Match of the Day...or even better Today at Wimbledon?
RR
RR
Any other programmes out there beat that - the exact same tune? No remixes / re-recordings / reworkings in 24 years?

Match of the Day?
TI
TIGHazard
Hasn’t the Channel 4 News theme been the same since the mid 1990s? Unless I’m missing a more recent remake. Many would say Coronation Street but the current version of that has only been used about a decade.

I was always a bit confused when people used to imitate the Countdown theme with a high-pitched synth drum sound at the very end, as that’s not how I knew it at all (much more of a lower pitch) - it was only years later I realised they were referencing the original version of the theme that stopped being used in 1989, indicating they hadn’t actually watched the show for some time.

HIGNFY’s closing theme has been the same since 1990, but the first series has a bizarre alternate version playing during the opening credits which sounds completely different, which I’ve always wondered about and why it ever existed.


There's small portions of the alternate version in the full length opening theme.

MA
madmusician
Oh, Big George - what a man!
MI
Michael
What's interesting about that HIGNFY full length recording (which has been a staple of my MP3 player playlist collection for nearly 20 years now!) is that it's "back to front" - the closing credits theme is the opening movement and the opening titles is the final section.

Match of the Day doesn't count because of all the annoying swooshes, effects and cuts made to it to make younger people sit up and take notice of it. It's been "reworked." Same with the Golf theme, and even the standalone Wimbledon theme.
JA
james-2001
Probably worth noting, given this forum is to close - it's probably been mentioned elsewhere, but although we know Countdown has had (effectively) the same theme tune from 1982 to present, it has had the same *version* / *recording* of its theme tune since 1996.


Speaking of the 1996 theme tune, when they first introduced that and the new logo, the 1991 logo was still on the set for the first few episodes for some reason.

In a similar vein, in the extended pre-launch trailer for the Channel 4 Daily in 1989, the segment of it which had Richard & Carol talking about the Countdown Masters segment was on the new 1989 set, but the episodes themselves were still on the old set and with the old theme tune.
JA
JAS84
Speaking of the 1996 theme tune, when they first introduced that and the new logo, the 1991 logo was still on the set for the first few episodes for some reason.

As seen here: https://www.tvark.org/?page=media&mediaid=131454

Must've been a late decision to change the titles.

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